


A Tale of Exploration and Adventuring

by fewlmewn (Shouriko)



Series: D&D Original Stories [3]
Category: Dungeons & Dragons - All Media Types, Original Work
Genre: Arranged Marriage, Bandits & Outlaws, Camping, Cave-In, Diary/Journal, Exploration, Gen, Injury, Inktober 2018, Kidnapping, Magic-Users, Monsters, NaNoWriMo 2018, Nobility, Political Alliances, Travelogue, Undead, Unreliable Narrator, Wilderness, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-15
Updated: 2018-11-19
Packaged: 2019-08-02 16:44:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 23,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16308917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shouriko/pseuds/fewlmewn
Summary: The Author is a young lad of noble upbringing, close-minded, sheltered and unaware of life outside his own. In times of peace, his father saw fit to send him camping in the bog, if anything to prove the nobles of the city that he's worthy of becoming a Lord. Having to hunt, fend for himself and survive in the Murkwater Marshes turns out to be boring even for him, and the Author will eventually discover more and more about the world and people around him. Longing to taste the thrill of adventure, he decides to set off and become an explorer and, who knows, perhaps even a brave hero. Although the winding path will carry him back home, there's no escaping destiny once you make yourself known...- Now with Illustration(s) -





	1. World - The Birth of Saria

**Author's Note:**

> I'm starting 2 weeks late, and it's a variation on Inktober based on the prompt list by World Anvil for worldbuilders and writers. I figured writing uses its own kind of "ink", so I can still participate, right? Also, maybe it's a warm up exercise for NaNoWriMo so I'll try to catch up and finish the prompt list on time!  
> Enjoy and leave a comment if you like!

 

Many legends surround the history underneath my very feet. It is told that some tribes of druids in the South, forgotten at the fringes of civilization, have witnessed the birth of Saria with their very eyes. I do not know how long it has been since then, considering that history itself has been contested and is murky at the best of times, and I do not know if it’s a flight of fancy or if it’s believable that these wizened savages in the woods would have lived long enough to survive the very Division that sundered the whole Land and are still here to tell the tale. I’m not as well lettered as I would like to boast, there’s much still foreign to me, especially the local oral history of folk who live in places such as Emera or the fabled Free Fields in the East, but neither are they lettered enough to prove their words – I would even go so far as to say that many travelling tribes aren’t even capable to read anything that’s written on parchment. But I find it hard to believe that someone, no matter how powerful or resilient, would live through the destruction the Gods themselves have brought upon Saria. As far as I’m concerned, and as far as my tutors back at the estate are paid to teach me, the Division destroyed all there was that could be wrecked to the ground. Ancient elven strongholds with their armies in shining Adamantine armour, elegant spires sprouting and forged in crystal like water from a well, carrying over the mysticism of the very Feywild – even those mountains forged by the Elements at the beginning of time itself; all of it was razed to a fine dust when Gods and Demons I fear to even mention in neat ink and capital lettering decided to start our bloodline anew, and erase what history our ancestors had built before then.

So when I met this old, hunchback wanderer a few nights back, you see, I was wary of his stories. The man was filthy, not as much from the grime of urban life like I’m accustomed to seeing, as from the slow, measured passage through the Murkwater Marshes. Covered in mud well above his knees, caked in white-brown oxidized sludge, his tatters were starting to grow moss from between the weave of some sort of linen or terrycloth he used to cover his bits. The rest of him was a ragged, hirsute amalgam; sickly grey beard meeting the sorry furs he wore in an undistinguishable mess of hairs. I fancy myself a gentleman even as I camp on the banks of this nameless winding creek among toads and splintered driftwood, so I repressed my initial disgust and let the poor wretch speak before making any sort of judgment call. He did indeed look like a savage, but not the sort to attack travellers and rob them of their very underpants, if I’ve ever seen one –just a destitute old man in the woods, in need for a stump to sit on and rest his blistered feet. I could not tell how long the man had been wandering the bog, his rags and appearance were well past a week or a month old, even, but beyond that he could’ve been here for years – decades perhaps.

With a roughened, hoarse voice that came from deep down his chest like beavers banging from inside a hollowed log, he asked me for a sip from my waterskin and to bask briefly at my campfire as he waited for morning to come. Knowing I was relinquishing an entire night of sleep to this stranger, I weighted my options and ultimately accepted, mostly out of fear of retaliation. I knew already that had there been an ounce of magic in this individual, his seemingly harmless gnarled walking stick could’ve turned on me in an instant while I slumbered peacefully. I’ve read enough stories as a child to know that it’s always best to lend a hand to those in need, if anything because the uncultured masses will take a refusal for a personal attack and will strike back right at you.

We spent the night quietly, silently staring into the fire for the most part. I had already dined so luckily I didn’t have to live through the embarrassment of having to find a good excuse to deny the man a piece of my meal. It’s not that I wouldn’t have wanted to share as much as I was worried about what manner of vermin lived in his beard and I would’ve had to allow into my mess tin along with him.

So we just stayed there in silence, both my eyes and his were growing watery as we watched intently at the hypnotic dance of the flames, and we wordlessly agreed to take turns into the night fetching a couple of dry branches to throw into the embers as soon as the bright light started dimming. Distant bird calls broke the stillness of the mire from time to time, until at some point the man coughed, with a wet and raspy sucking sound, before spitting a glob of grey slime into the thicket. I would like to believe I’ve been trained for such situation and I was able to disguise my expression of utter disgust, but I’m not so sure my tutors prepared me for this specific scenario.

Then, unprompted, he started telling me – – well, what I consider to be nothing more than stories. I sat there, passively listening to his words, conscious in that moment that my brain was refusing to believe any of it to be truly true even when his eyes widened and his brow frowned as if he was recalling real events from his past. Merely fiction, I told myself. I know not what made him want to tell what he did to me, a complete stranger who had even been rude to him, perhaps, by the standards of the cultured folk at least. Perhaps to him my kindness in allowing him some drink to ease his parched throat and a safe place to rest in the company of another sentient soul had been enough. And the things he told me kept me awake and enraptured. Disbelieving, yes, but captivated nonetheless. Stories of beings made of fiery fire and relentless stone walking on water, creating land wherever their steps brought them; titanic, towering over the sky itself, creatures made of hardy granite climbed out of the ground and crumbled, heaving and vomiting and spewing rock upon rock, each boulder piled beside the next until the Spine grew, curving like a man’s own at the center of his back. The old man took another swig in complete silence, his cracked lips against the mouth of my canteen, but I didn’t have it in me to stop him. Then he told me more, and more – about beings of water and air chasing each other as if in jest and carving rivers and ravines into the stone. About the Gods, plucking vermin and critters from their hiding holes with fingers made of pure radiance, to give them new life, to give them wits and a conscience, so they could think and build and speak amongst themselves like living beings are known to.

In the end, morning came and I was still in the same spot where I’d sat the night before, mouth agape and words escaping me. The man excused himself and thanked me, his voice cleared from exercise but still rumbling and shaking me to my core like an avalanche. All stories, just fanciful tales – – nothing I haven’t already read before in the odd contested history book by some discredited scholar. But now, as I write this, the nagging doubt still bothers me. What was initially planned to be a journey through the countryside of Valdmor before taking the mantle in my father’s stead will instead become an expedition to discover more about the history of our Land! They’re probably just legends, myths told by madmen wandering the marshes, but I’ve grown bored of watching cattails sway and bats fly overhead anyway – so I might as well go into this foray with purpose. I will hire some bodyguards and purchase sturdier travelling gear at my earliest convenience, and I will attempt to go South, in the direction the hunched coot went when the dark hues of the night sky turned into the pale grey of a rainy morning. Perhaps I will be able to follow him, eventually, into the territory where the druids dwell. Maybe I can discover how Saria was created from them with some degree of reliability, and I would be the first to bring word back to civilization – perhaps I could become a famous explorer by the time I have to be invested with Lordship! That would be a feat, indeed – – more so than journaling about the varieties of river fauna a few miles from home will ever be…


	2. Heroic - The Broken Lance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shopping episode, and the Author is close to giving up on his journey already... until he hears an heroic tale of a legendary knight.

A few days have gone by since my last entry and I have to admit to having fallen to the pleasures of civilized company. Coming into town to purchase a larger tent, a travelling escritoire, more ink and finer quills, quality rations, a drier bedroll and blankets, some rope in case I need to bind daring bandits, hire a bodyguard to watch my back into the savage lands, hire a squire to hold my belongings as we traipse through the woods – seemed to be a fine idea at first, but now I find myself fiddling about this quaint town, procrastinating. I fear I will grow complacent before long, so I must return to the task at hand before the whim to become a grand explorer passes and I crawl back home with nothing but a few pages on the types of lichen that grown in the shade of the Murkwater Marshes.

It wouldn’t be much of a journal if I didn’t retell the events of my day, but ever since arriving to Alcomb nothing worth of note has happened. The local drugstore charged fairly for the rations I purchased, although the jerky and dried fruit is not of the best quality. I had to make up for those by hiring a squire capable of cooking a decent hare and parsnip stew at the very least. I found the eager son of a maidservant, willing to see the world and unafraid to shoulder a short bow to fetch some game meat – he should do nicely. I didn’t bother listening when his mother told me the lad’s name, I’ll have to remember to ask him again – – but I’m sure she warned me to keep him from getting into too much danger, to which I replied that I was disinclined to find myself into danger in the first place, so surely the lad would’ve been fine. The look she gave me to that sort of answer convinced me to splurge and get a capable hireling that could protect me and the lad both, which turned out to be a massive bulk of a woman. Well over 6 feet tall and built like an ox, she has cropped ashen hair and piercing umber eyes. I’m not one to presume, but if the lass is orphaned, I would bet good gold that her missing parent must be orcish in nature she’s so stern-faced and strong! I found it best not to inquire, but she seems reliable, and in the past day she’s been in my employ here in town, she has proven to be a great deterrent for the odd pickpocket or conman. No one’s approached me trying to sell me overpriced, useless gear at all since she’s been over my shoulder to scare the offending salesmen away! Unlike the store I went to before departing from home…  That had cost me more than I’d like to admit, and my old tent is in terrible shape after just the week of usage!

Aside from that, little else happened, and I’m afraid there’s nothing much for me to write. The one interesting thing I can recall is a story I’ve heard while staying here at the inn – – as one would expect from these creative folk who have nothing better to do with their spare time than to come up with unbelievable tales. The legend of “The Broken Lance”, such is the name they’ve given it, talks of a valiant jouster who won the heart of many a lass near the bog surrounding Alcomb. After partaking in many tourneys and winning the game as well as the favour of several nobles – none of which were mentioned by name nor title by my drunken companions as they told this tale, perhaps out of fear that one such as myself, with my upbringing and knowledge of noble houses and their coats of arms, would see through their lies – the famed Copper Lance, as the jouster was then known, decided to retire and finally be wed to the most beautiful and noble-hearted lass in the whole mire. You see, this Lance had always kindly refused the hand of this or that lass, offered to him time and time again by the girl’s father, who had happened to organize the game for her benefit. It would’ve bequeathed the winner of a game to accept such a prize, but the Lance staunchly remained celibate through it all. Some began gossiping that the Copper Lance was no man at all, but a woman, or an impotent monk, or even an enchanted suit of armour, instead – that was the only possible reason why anyone would refuse the most comely and shapely of lasses not once, not twice, but many times over.

The men at the inn then start whistling and clamouring, saying words and making gestures regarding these undoubtedly fine women that I will not recall in this here journal. But indeed it would strike anyone as odd how a jouster in good health would refuse to be wed. So, you must understand, that when the Copper Lance declared they would’ve organized themselves a tourney to celebrate their retirement where the winner would’ve had the pleasure to present a lass for them to marry, all the local nobility scrambled to hire the best jouster to represent their nubile daughters.

At the end of the tourney, two were left to fight as the most chivalrous of chaperones for two fine lasses, very fine indeed – – the gestures grow once again in the taproom at this point, and my bodyguard scoffs over my shoulder at the umpteenth mimicry of heaping bosoms from one of the patrons. And it’s at that moment when the bearded destriers are clopping in the dirt, ready to charge, that a giant beast darkens the sky, obscuring the sun with its awesome wingspan, and plunges, picking in its massive talons one of the jousters clean off his horse! The huge creature throws the body in the air before swallowing the armoured figure whole without batting an eye, and dives again to tear the man’s horse apart in the sand with its fanged beak. Within seconds, the beast – half vulture, half wyvern – is gone, back towards the mountains, returning to its nesting grounds.

The crowd screamed and scattered in a panic, the tourney called off to mourn the poor sod who’d been taken, and to mount a defence in the small village. But without walls to protect it and without a Lord willing to send his own soldiers to defend the community against such a nightmarish, ravenous beast, the Lance’s hometown was doomed to become nothing but forage for the winged foe. More attacks followed, and tales of a gargantuan flying animal are well-known all around Alcomb even today – or so are my drinking compatriots telling me. In short order, every grown man, woman, child and elder is told to stay indoors at all times, and the untended livestock is defenceless against the beast. Cows, donkeys and poultry are swallowed whole or mauled in the sky, captured and taken to the monster’s nest to be eaten later.

One day, having had enough of seeing their community torn asunder, the valiant Copper Lance set off on their draft-horse, and their weapon now sharpened was readied to be used in mortal combat. The raucous laughter and merrymaking in the inn’s taproom dwindle into silent gasps, most of the patrons are enraptured by the tale as it’s told by two or three men who take turns with each part of it. A few drunkards have passed out where they sit, and the ending of the tale is recalled in complete silence by one of the storytellers, a burly bearded halfling hoisted on a chipped stool and brandishing an empty pewter tankard as he speaks.

The Lance, unbeaten and unbroken on the dirt of the joust, set off in their shining copper armour, barely dented and as beautiful as the day it was forged, on a strong, radiant white horse. With their pointed, deathly lance, they disappeared into the woods North-East of Alcomb, never to return. But so did the beast – it never returned to kill and maim, it was never once sighted again. One can only assume the Lance was finally broken, defeated by a mighty foe indeed, but protecting all of Alcomb and the whole Murkwater Marsh region in the meantime, saving perhaps thousands of lives. Some say the Copper Lance still lives as a hermit, dedicated to protecting the bog from further incursions from the mountains; other rumours have the Broken Lance as a ghostly appearance of a jouster with a splintered pole, charging across the mire on a phantom steed in search for a final victory.

At the end of the tale, among yawns and groans from scattering patrons, I felt tipsy and I returned to my room. I found it hard to fall asleep with such a grisly story burned into my mind, and I had to remind myself it’s just that – – a simple tale made to rouse the crowds and encourage children to be home by nightfall. But I decided to set off once again come morning. Who knows, perhaps hearing of such a brave and honourable knight made me hunger for adventure…


	3. Predator - The Savages of The Tarwood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Author and his hirelings stumble into danger and manage to escape by the skin of their teeth. But it's not enough to deter him, and he resolves to continue his journey - provided he resources a new journal to write his deeds on.

I’ll have to buy a new journal. This one was barely broken in but now it’s missing half of the pages and those that are left are smattered with – – I fear it’s blood, and mud. My hands are shaking even as I write this. The poor squire is pale as a sheet, Esja is keeping it together – I feel like it’s mostly for my and the boy’s sake but I can’t tell if she’s just heartless or scared out of her wits; I’ve only known her for three days, Gods!

Sometimes I feel like I’m talking and, granted, I tend to ramble when I’m not writing – and the lad is enthusiastic enough to fawn over me and nod whenever I turn to look at him, but Esja is always stone-faced. If I didn’t know better – because she sure knew to count my gold pieces – I would say she’s illiterate, or deaf at the very least. At night she would plop down on her bedroll, sword at her side and carving into a piece of dark wood with a dagger, chipping away at it, really. Shapeless, formless, just a chunk of wood she likes to toy with. Perhaps she imagines it’s my head she’s cutting into like a butter knife after many hours ambling through the bog with me never keeping my mouth shut!

She’s right, she is. I should’ve shut up. I should’ve trusted that fisherman. Look at me now! Covered in gore, and writing in my journal like it’s the only thing keeping me sane. But I’m probably losing my mind. Exploring the marshes, what a great idea I’ve had! I’m a madman, is what I am! I can’t even write straight and – oh, for all that’s holy, this page’s ripped all apart from the stitching; I’ll probably have to toss it. Why am I even writing?

Poor lad, I can see the tears brimming in his eyes. Esja is just keeping watch, but I bet she didn’t expect to find savages this close to town either. She’s by far the most experienced of our lot. Not hard to manage, since the boy and I are basically useless. At least he can cook a mean stew – I’m only good for keeping an account of how we die within five days of setting off from Alcomb. Only two more days to go, then.

But in all seriousness, nothing had or ever could prepare me to face the savages. I’d read about them, sure. In books, among tales and other such nonsense. I didn’t believe a word of it. I thought they were just more of those stories meant to scare children or adults on cold winter nights when they’re huddled around the fireplace. Not realistic accounts, for sure. And talk of “savages” is exactly what my tutors would avoid speaking about. They would tut at me, shake their heads and change subject. I’ve always been curious to know more, but they’d just say it wouldn’t become a young lad to know of such barbaric folk. Perhaps they were right, all things considered, but now that I’m in the middle of what appears by all accounts to be the savages’ territory, I wish I’d known and learnt more. Known to recognize the signs. Esja’s from up North and the boy had never left Alcomb before so I suppose we should’ve trusted the fisherman we met a day out from town.

He’d warned us that we should’ve followed the marsh and the trade routes to the West if we wanted to go South, that only bad things happen if you cross the Tarwood at this longitude, this far East, this close to the mountain. I’ve been foolish. If something had happened to people in my employ, how could I have ever faced my father again? Of course, he still thinks I’m camped three hours from the Keep at the lagoon edge closest to the city, but if he knew I’d gone exploring with hirelings, and I’d gotten them killed – he would surely believe I’m unfit to be a Lord. And if I had died? Well, I would have nothing to worry my head and heart about, then, would I?

As it stands, I’m here with my squire and my personal and faithful guard Esja, whom I owe my very life. Perhaps I could knight her once we return home. If. If we return home. We’re not entirely out of danger, yet. It would seem there’s still a ways to go before we return on safer routes. Perhaps by tomorrow afternoon we’ll be gone from these wretched woods. But seeing as there’s no way any of us will be sleeping tonight – no matter how hard Esja stares at us, urging us to gather our strength in light of another day spent treading through the mud and avoiding the thorny underbrush – I decided I’d write.

Damn it all! Another ruined page. Just in case we die in the night or are captured by savages, or meet our end in the morn by way of crocodile or other foul predator, I thought it better to spend this sleepless night recounting the horrors we’ve witnessed. So that if this leather, half-torn journal somehow survives, either in my hand or among my bag in a pile of bones picked clean by barbarians and vultures, someone will read of what we’ve seen. Alright, let me gather my thoughts.

After the fisherman warned us and forcefully pushed against my shoulder until I turned to the left to look at a worm-eaten wooden post bearing an arrow that marked “Wilmor” to the West and “Danger” to the South, I made a – in hindsight, very poor – judgment call to keep walking into the forest, shortcutting through the Tarwood. I don’t know why I said as much, if I think back to it now, there’s really no point in cutting a journey shorter, especially if you don’t have a deadline, as is my case. It’s not even like I wanted to save money and arrive sooner so that I wouldn’t have to pay the squire and Esja as much – – gold is not an issue and I don’t even have a destination set in mind yet! Why did I ever choose to delve into the woods?

Was it an excess of bravery? Was it stupidity? – Most certainly that, if nothing else. Was it curiosity, perhaps? Ah! I just barely tasted the sweet flavour for exploration and already I am biting off more than I can chew! Curiosity will be my curse, mark my words! Perhaps that’s why father never allowed me out into the world – he knew I’d develop a sick taste for it and never return, whether by choice or by fate!

But whoever finds this won’t care about my personal and familial struggles, so I should resume my account on the Tarwood and its denizens, the wretched brutes.

As some might know, the civilized folk call “savages” those who have shunned society and left the populated areas to dwell among the refuse and wilderness of the Tarwood, nearing the Southern borders of Valdmor. It’s said that these “individuals” are little more than animals – brute and displaying wanton cruelty when they come across another living being, they unleash arcane powers with obscure, outlawed magic practices in the forest. They call down spectral and demonic entities to do their bidding and aid in the Great Hunt during days’ long rituals filled with bloodletting and orgiastic frenzy. They partake in cannibalistic behaviour and will leave no trace of those they capture for their loved ones to bury or a search party to find – if one would ever dare be sent this far into these forsaken lands.

At first, we’ve witnessed cattle skulls, clean and sun-bleached, dotting a winding path into the dark thicket. What we thought to be markers turned out to be offerings, and the single cranium turned into collections, then piles of detritus and bone. Loud cawing warned us once more from above, urging us to flee. By some inexplicable courage, we soldiered on and continued into the Tarwood. Then, we started noticing the black pitch oozing from the trees – the sick which gives the forest its very name. Bleeding trees, marked with white and red runes and diagrams, in preparation of a dark ritual, most certainly.

A few figures darted beyond the treeline, my squire turned around to look, almost stumbling as his feet caught in a previously unnoticed vine. Esja made short work of the snaking plant-life at our ankles and the black branches fell, devoid of life – or the magic puppeteering them. I managed to get a good look at one of the savages. As pale as moonlight, with dreaded, matted blonde hair streaked with red, she had a manic look in her eyes and her cheeks were covered in yellow, brown and black lines and dots. She grinned a flash of red teeth before disappearing. Within seconds, an arcane force took a hold of all three of us, trapping us in place. Without binds to break, we knew it was the work of witches, and the smell of ozone and burnt skin proved my theory.

We heard laughter from behind the trees, mischievous and wicked, before foul images appeared into my very mind. I don’t know how best to explain it, but the scenes felt real – as much as they would’ve if I’d seen them with my eyes, although I didn’t. One could argue I merely imagined them, an illusory display summoned for our benefit, to scare us off and repulse us so much we would’ve fled the savages’ territory without the need for violence – if that’s the case, it certainly worked like a charm. But they felt so believable I can honestly say before the Gods that I feared for my life. The squire most certainly pissed himself a few paces behind me – I don’t fault him for it, I’m not entirely certain I held my bladder about myself either. Esja stood still, as if waiting for it to pass, unmoving and unflinching. A real warrior. An iron-willed woman unlike any I’ve ever seen nor met.

We were splattered with all manners of gore I won’t list in this here journal. The pages most certainly carry the marks and the stench to demonstrate the truth behind my words. All the while I was seeing in my mind’s eye scenes of the ritual sacrificing of a young maiden, still wearing her pristine wedding gown, being slaughtered before me. And I was unable to move a single muscle; I just stood there and heard her ear-piercing wails, the red gushing from her unblemished throat until she stopped screaming and moving entirely.

My squire refuses to disclose what he’s seen, further off to my right, but I imagine it must’ve been a spectacle just as gory and terrifying as the one I was subjected to. As a matter of fact, he refuses to talk entirely. I hope we’ll manage to get over this eventually.

Once the vision ended, the hold the savages had on us slackened and we were able to rush off towards the willows. We’re camped now, and Esja seems calm enough. I’ll have to trust her instincts. Hopefully we’ll get to safety soon. I hope we come across some civilized folk. I can’t stand writing on this foul journal any more, but at least recounting today’s events helped calm my nerves. If the lad’s fit for it, it might do him good to get a journal of his own.


	4. Oracle - The Travelling Mistress

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Author meets some exotic characters along the Gold Road into Emera and what initially seemed like it would be just another entry upon his journal, turns out to be the account of something life changing he had repressed from his mind, instead - a prophecy in disguise.

Finally some respite. After leaving behind the Tarwood and journeying by foot through marsh, then dirt, and finally grassland for almost two weeks, we managed to find a small hamlet of lumberjacks and tanners who harvested and traded for a living. It’s the first taste of civilization in a while, and it’s more than welcome. The sight of clean, clothed folk, working an honest wage leaves me with a sense of relief. Luckily for us, the hamlet lies along one of the trade routes into Emera and we are able to fetch a decent meal. The meat is nothing to write home about, but it is filling and the taste is rich, if a little gamier than I would prefer. On the side, there are blessed vegetables and a tart, sweet and sour compote made from local berries. Esja stuns me when she orders a baked dumpling with a tangerine filling and a mug of hot, spiced cider. Her sweet tooth clashes with the heavy, chipped blade at her side. The squire, whose name is apparently Cecil, scoffs down everything the maid brings to our table – seemingly without even stopping to see what’s in front of him. But at the end of the meal, as he caresses his full stomach with a blissed expression, he quietly whispers to me all the faults of the local cook’s choice of cuisine. I’m not a keen observer by any stretch of the imagination – not yet, at least, but I strive to become better at it – but I sense some sort of melancholy towards his mother’s own cooking in his words, rather than genuine critique from one chef to another.

We’re close enough to Emera that the sort of folk that pass through this small, nameless stop along the Gold Road are more exotic in attire and appearance. Darker skinned and with a different accent from the one I’m accustomed to, we see a fair deal of traders and merchants journeying North. I’m able to stop a short, busty woman who claims to trade in fine silks and who’s seemingly directed towards my hometown, and with a small allowance of two gold pieces I convince her to bring a letter I hastily compose on the spot to my father. The message explains my predicament and current whereabouts, my intention to continue travelling, it bears my signature and, finally, the envelope is sealed with wax and an imprint of my family’s signet ring. There, that should suffice to calm his spirits. He’s surely incensed about the whole ordeal – – well, he shouldn’t be, I’m managing just fine. Out of the corner of my eye I spot Cecil tugging at Esja’s sleeve and she sits down and starts writing a letter for the illiterate squire, before handing the envelope to a white-bearded herbalist on his way to Alcomb and the bog. The reason why anyone from Emera would go to the Murkwater Marshes escapes me, but I’m pleased to see I am a leader who can set an example his employers would follow.

Freed by any constrains that tied me back to my hometown and having passed through the Tarwood unscathed, I’m all the more bolstered to continue on my journey. Cecil doesn’t seem so convinced and mutters something about maybe heading back with the old merchant after all – but with a pouch full of silvers I’m able to persuade him. I give Esja an additional gold piece behind the squire’s back, just because she scares me and I want to remain in her good graces.

We set off again, and I start introducing myself as an explorer whenever we pass by wealthy-looking folk along the road. At the next town, a larger and more refined affair, we’re able to purchase a wagon we can outfit for long-distance travel. After two days on the road, some vital part of the wagon breaks down as we cross uneven terrain and we’re stranded for half a day, waiting for help to pass us by on the road and trying to find ways to mend the broken wooden shaft to no avail. We continue by feet. We pass a stone temple, a modest building with little in the way of décor and accoutrements, and a kind woman offers to heal my blisters and Cecil’s stomach bug – undoubtedly acquired through his reckless eating habits – free of charge. I thank the woman and we move on. When I look back in the direction whence we came, the stone building has disappeared from sight.

Now we’re finally at the border where Valdmor – my and Cecil’s motherland – meets Emera, a land filled with wondrous things, foreign to us all and which we’re all eager to discover. New customs, new traditions, more things to explore await us. More unbelievable tales and hearsay than my mind is capable of conjuring, even! I will attempt to recount here any odd and impossible myths that I manage to overhear, and in fact, some peculiar and extraordinary things have already happened to me! For example, yesterday something fascinating to say the least went down, and in my stupor and child-like wonder, as is with many things I’ve come across, I’m only just now remembering to write about it! I’m inconsistent, and that makes for a poor explorer – I should focus on compiling a more thorough journal. Besides, what happened last night has left somewhat of a lasting mark on my psyche, so perhaps it’s best to make a record of such an occurrence, out of sheer superstition in the event that something else comes to pass, and for the sake of posterity as well.

 

We were camped, as you do, a few yards off the road. I know little about these matters, but Esja seemed at ease after choosing the position for each of our tents, so I found no reason to question her. After a few hours, just minutes past sunset, a caravan with cream-yellow tarps and golden tassels pulled over the roadside and up near us. The one who drove the coach was a lanky, perhaps half-elven, man. He had a deep tan and dusty brown hair with a braided goatee; he nodded in our direction and stopped the horses – two beautiful palomino cobs with thickly furred manes and hooves – a polite distance away from our spot. The canvas that covered the caravan then split and parted, revealing a comfortable alcove. Two dark-skinned gnomes rushed off carrying stools and empty crates and started setting up a small, quaint camp. We all sat on our half of the camping grounds, dumbfounded and speechless at the display. Cecil had a quail impaled on a stick and roasting over the fire pit and he managed to burn it to a husk while he gaped at the curious group of travellers.

The half-elf chauffeur started muttering in a foreign language towards the interior of the caravan as he fetched and placed stones for a bonfire around the camp, and the gnomes ran off into the barren forest looking for twigs and dry brush to fuel the flames. Esja cautiously approached the man and in hushed whispers ensured our safety throughout the night, I’m certain. When she returned to us, she merely nodded and resumed her watch, leaning against a tree and looking up and down the road with a keen eye.

The rest of the evening went by without a hitch: the gnomes loudly chewed on some sort of meat jerky and exchanged what I assume, from the tone and rousing it provoked, to be lewd stories and jokes; the caravan driver ate from a mess tin, composed and collected, only humming from time to time and laughing silently along with the pair of gnomes.

Then, once we’d all gone to sleep, something peculiar happened. Cecil, who was taking watch at that time of night, came into my tent to wake me. He claimed that the half-elven man had asked for me and in an instant that notion compelled me to get up from my bedroll and approach the caravan at once – curiosity was getting the best of me again!

The coach driver returned to sit on his stool and gestured with his pointed, furry chin in the direction of the curtained side of his wagon. From between the two sheets of heavy cloth, a crack of trembling candlelight could be seen. I gathered my courage and climbed inside, silently hoping it wasn’t a trap meant to enslave me. I was as sure stepped as I could with that dreadful thought nested in my brain. But then, there she was: a beauty with dusky periwinkle skin and impossibly long hair the colour of virgin snowfall beckoned me closer and closer. I pride myself in how well I’ve learnt to control my urges, enough to befit my station, but at the sight of her my knees very nearly turned watery and wobbly where I stood.

The caravan appeared larger on the inside than the exterior had let on – – nothing but an illusory effect, yet impressive nonetheless, and the interior was cosy and tastefully furnished. Sat upon a black velvet bench, she whispered words to me that I will try to relate as closely as I can, despite being awfully distracted by how her crimson lips moved and how her nightshade-hued eyes darted to explore my frame from toe to tip.

“I offer you the chance of a lifetime, young traveller. I wish to read you your future, but we shall flip a coin for it.” I pulled a silver piece from my satchel, a Valdmoran one minted in the capital and depicting the King, a man this soothsayer probably wasn’t familiar with; but the rendition of his face on one side and of an eagle encased in laurels on the other were quite recognizable. She asked me to pick a face. I said tails and asked what we were flipping for, exactly – – what was at stake, regarding my future? I had never before come across a fortune teller and I honestly didn’t know what to expect.

“Tails – you win and I will tell you anything you want to know about your future. Heads – I win and you will owe me a favour.” I agreed to those terms and made to give her the coin – half because I expected her to flip it into the air, half because I was foreseeing some manner of payment for this service, one way or another. She shook her head, so I proceeded to flick the silver with my thumb. It pirouetted in mid-air, it most certainly would’ve hit the ceiling had the caravan not been larger on the inside. When it made to land on my open palm, as much as I loathe to admit it, in my clumsiness I missed it and it fell to the ground. It shocked me then and still gives me gooseflesh now to think about it, but the silver coin landed straight into a crack between the planks at the bottom of the carriage. Upright and unflinching. I motioned to recover it, groaning and scoffing in disbelief, but she gestured me to stop.

“It’s fate, then” she said, “that you and I both would win at once. Ask me a question and I shall reveal what awaits you.” I stopped to think for what, to me, seemed like an eternity, but couldn’t have been more than a couple of seconds. Foolishly, blurting out a question that I didn’t even want answered but which I’ve read about many heroes and lords asking of oracles before my time with fantastic results, I said –

“How will I die?”

She flinched, and that is all I could read of her reaction before her violet eyes turned to a grey whirlwind. Her voice, once crystalline and lilting, deepened as if she was conjuring a storm into her very ribcage. Still soft-spoken, and yet ominous – she told me as follows.

“You are not the first to ask this question, and you won’t be the last. I will tell you what I’ve told countless others before you. No sooner will you know the way in which you’ll die, than fate itself will be rewritten. Your very life will be shaped by knowing and, if you’re anything like the others, you will use this knowledge to prevent the course of destiny – this shall change the time, place, and manner of your death. So knowing this, don’t peg me as a liar when the time comes and it’s different than you thought you knew. Knowing this, do you still wish to hear my answer?”

I considered the circumstances. There I was, in the dead of night, alone and taken aback by the events of the past month and finding myself hungering for more, following this newfound strange – almost sickening – taste for the unknown. I’d always thought I’d die in my bed, back at the castle, of old age and surrounded by family and heirs. It hadn’t occurred yet to me that my disappearance – let’s face it, that’s what I had done by leaving the marshes – – disappearing – in itself had perhaps already changed the course of my history, and maybe all of Valdmor’s. Faced with this charming, enthralling fortune teller, I couldn’t help but ruminate on all of that within the space of a fraction of a second. And after the hurricane within my head dissipated, I replied “yes”.

Her pulsing irises fogged up entirely once more and, this time with a deep, booming voice like that of a man twice her size, she told me what I wish I’d never known…

 

I shan’t relate here her words. I wish not to. If the savages had shaken me, what she told me left me even more confused and traumatized. I went back to my tent, I still don’t know how I possibly managed to fall back asleep. This morning, I wasn’t even really aware of what had occurred during the night. When I woke, the caravan was long gone, the half-elf’s fire pit cold and black. We packed and spent all of today marching ever Southward, chatting amongst ourselves. I write during the evenings – when I’m not so bone-tired I collapse on the bedroll as soon as we make camp – and so I sat down no more than a couple of hours ago with a clear head, and careless thoughts swimming within it.

But now? As I’m writing, I feel the weight of everything I had pushed from my brain for the past day. Recalling and branding the words into the paper with ink is making me shake again. I do not want to share the words she said to me, now that they’re nesting in my head with a singular resolve. They’re all I can think of, and they are mine and mine alone. I wish to keep them secret. Perhaps it’s her talk of “changing history”, of “fate rewriting as soon as I knew the answer” that makes me want to keep what the oracle told me to myself. If no one else knows, even if I can’t cast the knowledge from my thoughts, then perhaps I can still control it. I shouldn’t have left home.

Before I left her carriage, however, almost like an afterthought, she whispered to me, almost mocking

“I won as well, remember? So – for my prize, you shall owe me a favour.” “How”, I replied, with a voice so small it didn’t feel like my own.

“Don’t worry. When the time comes, I will find you.” “You don’t even know my name, nor who I am” I fought back, pathetically.

“Don’t I?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter/Inktober entry was half a nightmare to pull out of my brain, half a brainchild. I love it and hate it. But if feels right, somehow? So if you're reading, leave a comment and let me know what you think!


	5. Infected - The Ghosts at the Ruins of Illinor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Author journeys into foreign lands, and approaches the Scorching Wastes. But more danger lurks between the sand and desolation than even he was prepared for. Will he be able to lead his expedition after putting his companions into danger, or will he surrender to his destiny?

I’m writing on the back of the smallest wagon I’ve ever had the misfortune to see. Rickety and with a weird greasy film covering the sides, it’s a miracle it’s lasting longer than our previous ride did. So forgive me if the ink is smudged and the edges are shaky and unstable.

The wagon was purchased for a moot sum of two silvers off a man along the road. The man was undoubtedly a local, dressed in typical attire from around these parts, from what I’ve seen. Bearded and rugged, the sunken lines of his face betrayed what I suppose to be a relatively young age. The man had lived to see hardship. He wished to be rid of the wagon – “to travel lighter”, or so he claimed. A sturdy, donkey helms this endeavour and we have a decent bag of feed to keep it going. The matter of drinking water is a problem for the near future, one I wish not to think about for now. The trees are thinner here, the Gold Road is dust-ridden and the climate this time of year makes for sandstorms that cloud the vision during the day. We’ve taken to covering our faces with makeshift scarves and pieces of cloth we could spare for the purpose, in order to ride as far South as we’re able to. There’s only one possible way to avoid the Scorching Wastes – a large deserted region at the core of Emera – and that would be to follow the Gold Road as it curves West towards and along the coast. It would take months to make it to the capital – – or to any city of relevance, for that matter, if we travel that way. As far as I understand it, there’s nothing in front of us for many miles if we go directly South from here. So we either rush across the desert, unprepared and risking our very lives in doing so, or we embark on the long trek towards the coast. My father is probably growing restless by the minute and I fear it’s a matter of days until a missive from him somehow finds its way to me, even as far removed as I’ve gotten. I wish to explore more, and I’m afraid that I won’t ever have the time or means to do so again if I turn back now. But at the same time I can’t slight him, nor the nobles and the very city, by staying gone so long.

We’ll push through until we hit sand, and then I swear we will turn around. Esja is weathering the change in landscape as well as one would expect – by not flinching nor expressing disagreement or discomfort. Stone-willed, she is. Cecil has caught a cough from the first day of riding unprotected in the storm and I wish we could find a healer of some kind soon enough to get it taken care of. It’s starting to worry me, and I’ve given my word I would’ve kept the lad safe.

-

It’s been a couple of days, and we’re currently staying at the last inn before the Wastes. As luck would have it, we’ve managed once again to miss a major town and found ourselves in a near-nameless hamlet with a handful of souls manning the few vital shops necessary to fulfil the most basic needs. In a poorly stocked smithy with a tall plume of black, thick smoke rising from a brick and stone chimney, Esja was able to sharpen her blade – it had gotten too dull to serve right. There is a general store stocked with the bare minimum, but it doesn’t carry enough dry rations to last us if we pursue a path into the Wastes; so I, as the leader of this expedition, decided to end it here. We shan’t push further, but I do wish to explore the ruins I’ve been hearing about from the innkeeper.

An elderly elf owns this tavern I’m sitting in as I write, and if my studies taught me anything is that elves lead very long lives. So when an elf with a face full of wrinkles and a croaky voice tells me there are ruins to the East, I’m bound to take his word for it and believe him. Absent-mindedly, he polishes day in and day out some earthenware mugs and cups, until it seems like dust is coming off, ripped from underneath the layer of polish or enamel. But as he does so, he tells me stories. Titbits and morsels from different ones are stitched together until they turn into a jumbled mess, but as I’m the only real patron at the inn, and the one most likely to care for his words – as I’m sitting at the counter most of the time, waiting for something to come to pass, hopeful and defeated that I’ll soon need to return home – I listen intently when he speaks.

The ruins are a collection of crumbled and collapsed walls and towers of a once prestigious fortified town. Illinor Keep used to lord over the hamlet we are currently in, but ever since its destruction, only the husk of this stop along the road remains; the very concept of this being a popular spot for traders, merchants and adventurers in need to gear up before braving the Scorching Wastes is only a distant memory. The vestige of Illinor is now a collection of ramshackle houses and the occasional shop. Stocks run low in town and travellers prefer to get into the Wastes by way of the Dreadwood to the Eastern side of it, or from the West, after purchasing adventuring gear at the stores one will find in the much larger and wealthier coastal cities and ports of Emera. The ruins are still there. Unmoving and turning to dust as sandstorms beat along what portions of the wall remain standing. I was warned not to wander too close when I inquired – the innkeep must’ve read my curiosity on my very face. The man said some sort of sickness has taken to the stone and there are reports of sinkholes opening into the soil around Illinor, splitting the dirt to reveal the underground passages and tunnels the soldiers who manned the Keep used to defend the border of the civilized lands against creatures and vermin from the desert. So, I deduced that one could expect predators, environmental and structural dangers, and perhaps even peril to one’s health if they dare brave and approach the ruins.

Against my better judgment, I find myself surprisingly unshaken by this information, and the desire to see the ruins for myself wins over my cowardice and instinct for self-survival. I will leave Cecil to recover in his room – – we haven’t found a physician yet, but the inn owner was able to brew, with his centuries-old experience and knowledge, an herbal, thick amber syrup ideal to resolve this coughing that has been troubling the lad. Esja will quietly pack her weapons and, together, we will trek to the ruins of Illinor during the night, and be back before dawn – none will be the wiser.

-

I have returned. Luckily my writing hand is unharmed, but I twisted an ankle and broke my left wrist. Cecil has fully recovered in the two days we’ve been away, but I fear I will need to find myself an healer soon if I want to regain full use of my hand and foot. The innkeeper looked daggers at us when we returned; and with good reason, judging from the state we were in and his previous cautioning and warnings regarding the ruins. I just needed to see something this exceptional for myself. I didn’t want the ruins to be just another story, a mere invention without a time, a place and no evidence to back the purported history behind it. It was my chance to finally make a discovery, touch with hand and see with eye the very grounds that gave birth to legends and myths. I couldn’t have imagined how dangerous it would turn out to be – – well, actually, I could’ve, had I just heeded the innkeep’s words. I’m stubborn – always have been –, I’ve discovered a unique taste for exploration and the danger that comes with it, and curiosity will be the death of me if I do not return home promptly. Who knows what else could happen if I linger in these lands?

We’ll depart tomorrow on our small caravan. I’ll have to take up the space, since I cannot follow along or sit comfortably otherwise. It’ll take a while to make our way to the border into Valdmor, I just hope nothing else comes to pass that could endanger our lives. In the meantime, since the dull ache from my wounds is keeping me awake, I shall recount what Esja and I have found at Illinor. Also, I don’t want this grief to have been for naught. So here is what I gleamed of the once prestigious Illinor Keep…

_We absconded and quietly left the tavern well past sundown, looking as inconspicuous as possible as we made our way through the small village at first, and then away from it. Within an hour-long trek Eastbound, wading and carefully stepping between rocks, mounds of sand and dry dirt, bushes, thorny trees and other local flora, we finally came into sight of some pillars of white, sun-bleached stone that breached the horizon. We approached and before us were the Ruins of Illinor. What could’ve been a great stronghold or, with time, a popular historical site or touristic spot, was instead a collection of collapsed half-walls, and strange, spiralling staircases – all that remained of once massive towers – barely held together by fragments of what I imagine used to be 30 feet tall ramparts. We moved within the site, past the destroyed entrance to the keep, where a gate or portcullis must’ve been previously. On the ground, amid the sand, were remains of rotted, splintered wood. The innkeep hadn’t told me why the town had been vacated in the first place, if its state was a consequence or the reason why it had been abandoned. My best guess at the time was that some sort of conflict had occurred and the forces stationed here hadn’t been able to best the enemy. I reminded Esja to be on the lookout for potential predators or stalkers. We walked further into the centre of town._

_The layout of several houses is discernible in the way the brick and stone has corroded around and under the beating sandstorms – anything of value has long been removed. The further in we go, the closer we get to the main keep. Somehow still recognizable, although with great structural damage on the outside of it, we see a large building. Smoothed over by wind and the elements, the front door is missing and, despite the complete darkness that envelops the rest of Illinor, a faint glow comes from inside. I move the lantern behind me, to have a better look, and indeed I see that the sanctum of this ruin is producing a sickly, pale-green light. Esja and I share a look of fear and curiosity before she makes to step inside in front of me._

_On what still stands of the walls, there’s a growth that snakes upwards in small batches of crystals. Spiralling and curving on themselves, these small gems glow and shine with a green hue. Not pulsing, but persistent. Almost radiant._

_Esja moves forward and makes to enter a corridor to the left, testing the floor with an armoured foot before stepping in place. The ground crunches with bits of stone and debris and white sand gathers in the corners and in the spaces between the tiles. Cracked or missing in their entirety, the tiles that make up the flooring of Illinor Keep proper are the architectural element in the best shape of all. The glowing beacons along the walls follow suit as we move in, lighting the way. In a room, long forgotten and with its door blasted away from the hinges, I find an open foot locker near a cot splintered in half._

_I left Esja’s shadow, for barely an instant, curiosity getting the best of me – – indeed it was a foolish move, and I entered what might’ve been a dormitory to look inside the dusty chest. There, I found a piece of cloth, and before the thought of approaching it with care even crossed my mind, I looked as my hands reached out to grab it._

_It was leathery, sort of soft, like very worn and weathered suede. Dust came off it, and for a second it looked like my very hands were turning to sand in the low glow the walls were giving off. Spooked by the vision, I let out a shriek and I heard and felt Esja come bounding down the corridor in my direction. Eventually, it was the weight of her armour and forceful gait that made the ground open up underneath us, right as she approached my bent figure to see if I was alright._

_Within seconds, I felt my body light as a feather and then as heavy as steel, when the fall ended with Esja half on top of me. My ankle was sprained, I recognized the burn immediately, but the pain in my wrist only made itself known when Esja got to her feet, clutching her shoulder, releasing my arm from under her. It hurts like nothing I’ve ever felt, and aside from that I also feel like the air has been punched out of my lungs. The underground chamber that swallowed us shines much brighter, and it’s clear that the blight that affects the upper floors started from this mother lode of glowing ore. Holding my broken wrist with my good hand, I stumble to my feet and I see Esja’s face pulled tight in an expression of barely disguised pain. Her pauldron got thrown aside during the fall and she hit her shoulder against one of the green stones that sprout from the rock bottom of the pit. Her tunic is ripped, but worst of all is the appearance of the wound the impact left behind. No blood, no signs of contusion, but a bright white and pink burn. I imagine it’s something close to an acid mark, but its star-shaped tendrils look different than that. I use my waterskin to pathetically try and wash at her shoulder, but there’s no acid or other such liquid to clean. It seems like the contact with those glowing rocks was the cause of it._

_For a full day we stumbled through mercifully empty tunnels, carved in the earth under Illinor Keep. Here and there we found wasted skeletons, left behind mid-work. The bleached bones were almost sun-bright and we kept away from the walls while we walked. Bordering on exhaustion, we kept going without sleep, only resting for short periods of time when the sickly green glow of the infected stone gave way to walls of pure, blessedly harmless, rock. Nearing what will prove to be the way out, we found fresher corpses. It’s still unclear to me if these were better kept remains of the former tenants of the Keep, or if it was a group of unfortunate prospectors, who had explored the ruins at Illinor Keep in the hopes of mining some of this peculiar, unique ore. Their bodies are bloated in places, while the face and the back of the hands are sunken, betraying the silhouette of bones underneath the parchment skin. In the swollen portions, thick blisters breach the work-clothes where they’ve been burned away by the glowing crystals, much like Esja’s own tunic, and around it is a web of spiralling, star-burst burns. Inside their mouths, agape with unbridled terror and pain, are growing new sickly yellow-hued gems, which cover the corpses teeth, gums and tongues. When I tried crouching closer, one body groaned with a sound I’ll never forget and opened eyes that glowed with an otherworldly green light. The yellow crystals shattered as their mouths spread impossibly further to unleash a death-rattle that shook me anew. Ignoring the pain of my swollen ankle and crooked wrist, with Esja pulling me by my collar with incredible strength, we started running and running, until a lick of sunlight broke the surface. Tear-eyed and blinded, we found ourselves near one of the outer walls, just outside Illinor , a little ways North from where we’d entered the ruins. In the following half of a day, we gathered our breath and thoughts and slowly made our way back to the village. We returned with our tails between our legs and contrite because of our – yet, ultimately, mine – mistake._

I was the one who chose to explore the ruins, even against better and wiser counsel. I wonder what sort of Lord I’ll become if I can’t even heed the words of someone far more world-weary and knowledgeable than me. How will I be able to lead an entire city, if I put myself and my loyal bodyguard Esja in the midst of danger so recklessly? I’m tired now, so I’ll probably refrain from writing – it’ll be hard enough to ride on a donkey-led, rickety carriage in my condition, let alone write during the journey back. Next time anyone will hear from me will probably be in the form of a boring report on the latest harvest, or some such trifle.

The only thing I’ll have to remind me of my adventuring days – if I can even call them that – will be this strange cloak I found at the bottom of my bag…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My muse has abandoned me and I'm slow with writing new stuff. Hopefully I'll stick with it and finish it, even if I have to get into November with this sort of passion project/challenge.  
> Comments and critiques are more than welcome! Let me know what you think!


	6. Attack - Helpless Witnesses

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Author stumbles upon a serious deed on his way back to Valdmor and his home, and he struggles to balance ethics and survival instinct - is it better to save oneself or to risk one's life in the foolish attempt to save others'?

I find myself writing once again despite my last entry due to some unforeseen circumstances. A young lady named Jenet joined our ranks. She’s a budding herbalist and healer we encountered and recruited in a small village past the border into Valdmor. Seeing as she had aspirations to journey North – perhaps to the very city I hail from – in order to find a lucrative occupation, and considering my need for constant medication and aid with recovering from my injuries, we agreed to let her travel with us. The caravan is still somewhat in working order but we’ve had trouble purchasing enough dry rations to feed us all and the donkey as well. Luckily, we kept to the fringes of the woods and Cecil, now healthy and spry with Valdmoran air filling his lungs, has done a very fine job indeed procuring meat and forage to sustain us all.

Unfortunately, something terrible happened two days ago and, not being sure about how to address the events that transpired, we just left everything behind and made to continue on our journey. But what I’ve now seen will trouble me for the rest of my life, perhaps even more so than the illusions from the savages of the Tarwood did. And I realize how writing helps me cope with the strain of recent events. Perhaps that’s what keeping a travel log or a journal is about: a therapeutic way to disclose one’s own feelings without fear of judgment and repercussions, or regret in confiding with the wrong person. What we’ve witnessed will remain between us, the members of my small group of travelling companions, and the ink on this diary – no one else. I’m not familiar with the tribal laws that dictate righteous acts from wrongdoing in these cases, but I’m sure that failing to aid someone in need would count as an offence in front of most lords’ courts. I hope the King’s gaze won’t turn this way, and I hope no guards will come looking for us. I am willing to destroy any evidence and – yes – even this very journal, if need be. Esja is eyeing me with a dour expression even now, as I write – – surely she knows I’m endangering us all with my senseless ranting, but I fear it’s the only thing keeping me sane.

There was nothing we could do. We were only helpless witnesses. We’re armed with one valiant sword-maiden who’d however never seen a real fight – Esja –, a good shot who’s never had to kill a living being for reasons other than hunting – Cecil –, a useless noble who knows next to nothing about defense, or offense for that matter – myself –, and lastly a healer, with underdeveloped powers and poor skills, and not well practiced in the arcane arts to boot – that’d be Jenet. All things considered, we wouldn’t be able to take down a single bandit, let alone a mob of them, made up of some of the most cruel and savage of known criminals and cutthroats of the land, all gathered under the banner – if that’s what one would call it – of the most infamous of evil characters known to law and order.

People have taken to calling him The Red Creek, because he leaves behind a river of blood wherever he steps, be it a small town, the slums of a grand city, or a quaint little village. It’s my best guess that nothing would’ve happened to this place in a thousand years, for it was such a quiet and unassuming little community where no evil deed could ever occur. We were going to reach the small gathering of houses in the morning, and attempt to buy some feed off a simple farmer working the land surrounding us, but the condition of our caravan forced us to camp in the woods for the night. At first light, we arrived to Mairac – only to see the small wooden signboard bearing the hamlet’s name in chicken-scratch handwriting and poor craftsmanship singed to a blackened husk. A lone hatchet swing marked the pole that held the sign into the city, whoever caused it more interested in raining destruction upon more interesting prey. Two houses were aflame at opposite ends of the stretch of road that bisected Mairac, bathing the entire clearing into bright red and orange against the deep blue of the sky right before dawn rolls in. Initially shocked and fearing for some sort of natural catastrophe or a sequence of spells being misfired into the wooden structures that made up the village, we stood at the edge of Mairac, near the signboard for a long minute before noticing movement between the houses. Dark figures were rushing and skipping joyfully from building to building, carrying tarps and burlap sacks. Loud, ear-piercing laughter broke the crackling of the fire and the stillness of that early morning before being followed by blood-curdling screams and cries for help. Immediately, we jerked as if awakened from a deep slumber, and I began to sweat and tremble. Cecil was much in the same state as I, and it was Esja who manhandled the donkey and turned him, the carriage, and me into the tall, unkempt underbrush of the nearby woods. On the other side of me, Jenet was emotionless and stared into the main road into Mairac as she grabbed Cecil by his sleeve and pushed the squire into the shadows, before joining us in our hiding spot. We were frozen into place, less than two hundred yards from the nearest house and with the light from the blazing fire we were able to see a bandit run out of a house with two sacks. Both were lumpy and stretched around their contents, but one of them was moving. The bandit, his face covered and a long, bloodied blade at his side, was stealing someone’s child. That could be the only explanation. We didn’t see The Red Creek, but his reputation precedes him and we all immediately knew that only he could arrange for such a large-scale attack. Destruction, horrors, larceny – all carried out with an organized troupe of criminals at least as mad and cruel as their leader; it was the very trademark of The Red Creek, and we didn’t need any more confirmation of it. But moments after, while we were all holding our breath and hoping to avoid detection, we saw another figure come out of one of the larger houses. Not unlike the other bandits who were by then sauntering from wreckage to wreckage hauling loot, but definitely with a different posture, this man carried himself differently as he marched into the center of the street, dragging a struggling figure behind himself. Most bandits joined the little spectacle and gathered women and children into a circle, all of whom were crying and screaming for help. My vision was obstructed, and I thank the Gods for having afforded me this small mercy of not having the scene burnt into my mind of The Red Creek as he slit the throat of the patriarch of Mairac in front of his community. I couldn’t have borne the sight, but the sounds and cheering from the mob of bandits was clue enough to deduce the events that followed. With the advantage of their laughter and cajoling, Esja quietly tugged at my, Cecil’s and Jenet’s sleeves before turning the donkey back into the woods. With tears in her eyes, Jenet was the one to oppose resistance the most – not surprising, seeing as she’s sworn to help and heal the sick and the wounded, but the situation was far beyond our control, and the foe far too strong for us to do anything about it. We ventured back into the woods and pushed until dark. Today, we’ve done the same, and we’ve been journeying North after Esja in a direction we hope will lead us back home without crossing The Red Creek’s path of destruction.

I relive the moment in my head whenever my mind wanders, and my imagination runs wild and fills in the missing details until the picture I paint of my own volition comes to be far worse than I even witnessed in person. Perhaps it’s the weight of the guilt that makes me think of this, it’s the reason why I’m not able to shake this off. Maybe I’m just afraid because one I’ll be Lord I’ll have to deal with criminals and bandits such as these, and I don’t know if I’ll have it in me to protect the land and the people I pledge to defend if this is what I’m fighting against. It was terrible, a horrendous sight and we will have to live with it. We will have to live with the images in our brain and with the knowledge of having fled without lending help. I have no doubts that Mairac has been erased from the maps and no one will even learn of it until a wandering traveller stumbles upon the remains of the village. No trade passes through such a small hamlet, and I doubt any of those people had relatives living elsewhere who will grow worried when no news arrives from the family they left behind. If children were indeed stolen and have survived their captors, I am sure that there are no mothers and fathers left in Mariac to seek them out and look for their sons and daughters. We are the only living souls who know what happened, and we fled. Even if we alert the guard, nothing can nor will be done about it, and we risk being involved in the investigation and treated as hostile, unlawful persons of interest. If I’m bound to become a Lord, I cannot have something like that happen to me – not because I’d rather become a wealthy noble than uncover justice for the poor people of Mairac, but because nothing will come of it now, and I’m much more likely to have the power, and strength, and courage to find and execute The Red Creek and his goons as a Lord than I will ever be as a lowly explorer with a broken hand and swollen ankle.

Esja is stepping towards me, I should probably stop here before she throws the journal into the fire pit –

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back at it again! Hopefully now that it's NaNoWriMo I'll pick up the pace and gain momentum to keep going!


	7. Crawling - Rot and Disease

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Author has finally returned home, and thinks back to the past few days spent exploring the unknown, while he wonders if more adventure awaits him or if he'll have to accept his fate and start taking care of his duties as the Lord-To-Be.

As I sit once again at the desk I’ve grown out of in the room I used to sleep in as a child, I think back of all the adventures of these past months. When I left the castle, it was meant as a short foray into the nearby wilderness to prove the nobles of the city my worth as a young, brave lad, capable to fend for himself and to lead the population within our walls.

I am a changed man. What I’ve lived and seen turned me from a braggart, entitled and arrogant fool into something I hope will be better suited to understand the life outside of this castle’s walls. I cannot help but know the way of the nobility; I cannot help being lettered in ways most of the peasants living around me will never achieve; I cannot help being coddled and protected by the knowledge of having wealth by my side whenever the need for it manifests. My experience in the bog was meant to make me understand that where money isn’t enough to solve one’s problems, courage and strength will have to make up for it. Not only did I survive what in hindsight are petty challenges, but indeed it was my decision to travel further away from home that allowed me to fully embrace the kind of bravery needed to provide for my people. I can only hope my privilege will not blind me and I will swear to do good by them when the time to take father’s mantle comes.

Father is restless. My letter reached him promptly, but my detour near Illinor caused much delay due to my injury, the slow pace, and other troubles along the road. So in the end, I managed to return only much later than originally anticipated. All I know of what went down in my absence is that the nobles in the city had grown restless with my absence, as I anticipated, and rumours started to spread regarding my true whereabouts. In the end, father had to lie and spread gossip of his own: I had returned in the dead of night, but I was indisposed and unavailable, having caught some sort of blight while near the bog. While not a lie that helped appease the nobles’ need of proof that I would’ve been a decent leader for the city – indeed my father had made it sound like my carelessness in choosing a source of water was behind my illness –, it was still a lie that the staff at the castle could carry out unhindered. Being sick was the perfect excuse to justify how no one had seen me in the flesh yet. Father has mentioned that other lies have sprung from the one, but with news of unrest near the city of Rendstone he’s been too busy managing the troops to stop and explain what he meant with that. For the moment, I am enjoying some quiet at the castle while I train my wrist back to the usual mobility.

If this diary I’m writing was once meant as a travel journal, to be published once I uncovered some grand discovery during my days as an explorer, having returned to my duties inevitably marks the end of that period of my life. I believe I’m richer for it, having experienced great things, but I fear this will end up being a boring memoir on politics and aristocracy now that there’s not much else for me to do. I will be bedridden in this castle, one way or another, for the rest of my life – stuck between councils and meetings with barons and the like. I would’ve been fine with it three months ago, but things have changed now that I’ve tasted adventure. It was horrific, terrifying and deadly, but I crave more. I still do.

In hopes to appease that hunger, I will leave this journal with an entry that pertains to my travel’s original purpose – by telling of the habitat and creatures that surround the bog itself. Of course, this didn’t occur in the same area I was meant to camp in at the beginning of my trip, but instead it happened near the inner sanctum of the Murkwater Marshes, where the mud is thicker and the trees spring from the ground already barren of their leaves but with girth and imposing stature nonetheless. I was finally on my way back home with my small party of companions when we found ourselves slowing down, wading in water that went up to our thighs. By then, we’d left Cecil back at Alcomb with the carriage and donkey, and the squire had sworn he would’ve caught up with us here in the city once he’d visited his mother and gathered his belongings. I trekked further into the Marshes with Esja in the front and Jenet by my side, to make sure I didn’t trip face-first into the swamp.

Nearing sundown, as we were looking for a dry spot to set up camp – – that’s when it happened. The beast came from behind a tree, piercing the water with its armoured thorax. It looked like an over-large bug, with antennae and mandibles that snapped in Jenet’s direction. The body was dark orange with brown mud covering the legs and tail of this awful creature, and the beast looked to be moving at a strange pace, both fast and molasses-slow at the same time. It crawled between the weeds and brush before lunging for Jenet, who promptly held up her shield with the arm that wasn’t busy holding onto me with a strength I’d never seen her exhibit before. Immediately after parrying the bite from the monster, the once shiny metal of her shield started fogging up, now of a dull grey with blossoming splotches of orange. Her reaction was enough to allow Esja to move around the beast without aggravating it, and she flanked it while I clumsily tried to shoulder my bow and notch an arrow.

Esja plunged her sword between two plates and greyish blood sprayed her, followed by a guttural, ringing shriek of pain. As she continued to strike the monster, I calmed enough to steady my grip and prepare an arrow, only to find its metal point was missing, as if it had disappeared down into the bog waters. Meanwhile, Jenet kept her iron grip on her shield and continued to block the beast’s biting attacks; but with each successful bash, the piece of metal in her hand turned darker and darker, the flaky florets of orange blooming until the entire shield was covered in a layer of rust. I notched arrow after arrow but each and every one of them was missing its head. Before long, I noticed that one of the feathery antennae on the top of this clicking, crawling monster’s head was caressing my arrows, and the metal was corroding down to nothing under its touch. With a final bash, Jenet’s shield also exploded in a cloud of brown and orange metal shards and dust, causing her to stumble right into the creature’s maws. Luckily, the beast didn’t have the strength to bite down on her, because the next hit delivered by Esja on the opposite side of the monstrosity’s body was the killing blow. With a final scream, like a thousand nails falling into a copper pot and ringing until they stop bouncing inside of it, the creature’s grip on Jenet slackened, and its massive physique fell with a splash into the water. Esja was filthy, with streaks of her own red blood dripping down the side of her head and shoulder and into her waterlogged tunic. That’s when we noticed her armour was gone. It had likely suffered the same fate that Jenet’s shield had – corroding under the relentless rain of monstrous blood she caused with her blade. Esja’s sword wasn’t in a much better condition, but at least it was still intact, albeit almost unrecognizable with a thick bumpy layer of rust covering it from tip to hilt.

We barely had time to catch our breath and rationalize what had happened before more clicking came from the distance, likely calling for the felled monster, and soon enough we heard barbed insectoid legs wading through the mud with squelchy sounds. We knew that more of those things were coming, so we picked ourselves up and ran across the swamp with unparalleled speed, and we finally camped at dawn, only once we’d gotten out of the marsh proper.

As much as I was scared to be living through it all then, barely a handful of days ago, I now long for adventure again. Even if it meant risking my life, I’ve never felt more alive than when I was dragging my weight behind me in a sand-filled tunnel, or when I was ensnared by tribal hallucinations in the Tarwood. But now it’s all in the past. My adventuring days, if one can even call them that, are over. For her bravery and support, I’ve been inquiring to grant Esja knighthood within the city, to repay her efforts and instrumental help in leading me back home unscathed – for the most part. It will be difficult to explain why I had to hire a sword in Alcomb when I was meant to be camping in the lowlands looking at cranes and catfish – or worse, while I was bedridden and nearing death from an unknown plague – but I will do my best to file in the paperwork needed to knight her. She deserves it. Jenet works in the city, she found a place as the apprentice to a well-known herbalist; apparently, that’s just what she’d been looking for, and she was pleased that so much peril and trouble at least had led her to achieving her goals. If Cecil shows up again, I’ll try to sweep his involvement under the rug and quietly hire him in the castle. The barracks could use a shot as good as him. He’ll be a gem in the rough for a while, as the son of a maidservant without military experience, but he’ll become a good scout soon enough. I owe it to him as well to find him a suitable occupation in the city, so he can become something more than just a squire.

As for me, my days reminiscing the past few months must come to an end, and I ought to return to my duties if I want to do my father and city proud. I shall stop him tomorrow morning to inquire about the trouble I caused with my absence. I need to start thinking about the consequences of my actions, be it the last thing I take away from my days exploring and adventuring in the South.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're officially into NaNoWriMo territory! I hope you're liking what I've written so far, and if you have anything to say, any critiques or questions and the like, don't hesitate to leave a comment! Thank you for reading and for your support!


	8. Matrimony - Lady Alianna of Lith

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Author reminisces on his meeting with a noble from Lith, and considers the themes of duality - steadfastness and cunning, brashness and strategy, heart and intellect. Recent events have changed many things in how he sees the world around him, but have they changed his opinion in these matters, too?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It goes without saying that I post every chapter as soon as it's done, so of course none of this is beta read, not even by me! And there's minimal spell-checking, so bear with me. I'll revise everything at the end of NaNoWriMo. For now I wanna keep the flow going! Enjoy!!!

My father is not a shrewd politician. He doesn’t resort to subterfuge, nor does he enlist the help of hired mercenaries or spies. Perhaps he thinks these things too fickle to suit our city and the way he leads it. He is not daft, or too stubborn to lower himself to these unorthodox methods, he simply grew during a time when the bravery of a soldier was unparalleled by the skill of any other warrior. Victories and diplomacy were achieved through strength and power, through physical displays of fitness – this is the same reason why the noble houses of Othmor requested that I undergo a trial to prove my skills as a leader and as the future Lord of this city. Other skillsets are not taken lightly – those who are gifted in the arcane arts find employ and prestige in other environments, as do those who are capable to fend off opponents with means other than the traditional weapon of an armoured guard. As it stands, my father is the sort of man who, for better and for worse, solves problems with a head-on approach, without much thought spared for lies and deception. Which is why my decision to leave the given path to explore the Southern reaches of Valdmor and the Northernmost regions of Emera of my own volition caused him much grief. He found himself with a missing son – – certainly on his way back home; but without knowing of his precise whereabouts, there was little for him to do other than be patient and await for his – my – return. Such was the circumstance that brought him to fabricate the only lie his untrained mind could summon – that of an alleged illness. For a month he had to keep up the pretence of this disease that was plaguing me, and he constantly had to take care of avoiding discovery with the maidservants and valets working at the castle on top of his already full agenda. Something is brewing near the mountains and I shouldn’t have given father reason to keep his focus away from those matters, but I didn’t know to do otherwise. My decision undoubtedly prompted and caused the sequence of events that followed.

 

As far as anyone was concerned, my arrival into town was due to the fact that I had gone to a nearby village to enlist the aid of a specialized healer, apt in curing swamp-borne diseases. For this, the clamour that welcomed my return wasn’t because the Lord’s missing son was finally home again, but because I was allegedly cured of whatever I had caught in the Marshes. Two days ago, almost a full week after my return, while I was standing in the courtyard in front of the castle with members of the staff saluting and congratulating me on my recovery as they walked past, I saw a fancy carriage pull up near the stables. Curious to see who these wealthy visitors were, I saw no reason to hide inside the castle, and so I stood like a scarecrow in the middle of the forecourt, with a less than intelligent expression painted on my face. Completely clueless, I was stuck in place as a beautiful young woman climbed down the carriage, followed by her lady-in-waiting and a valet carrying her luggage. She briefly stopped on her way inside and with the vestiges of recognition, I at least saw fit to bow and salute her, faintly recognizing the stunning elven woman to be of some import.

It’s no secret I, infinitely more interested in ancient history than I would ever be in noble houses and their members, should have studied certain subjects more alongside my tutors – but in my defence, books only relay the illustration of a certain family’s coat of arms, and not detailed portraits of all of those that are part of it. So, I truly had no way to recognize the woman. She knew who I was and briefly smirked before whispering, so low not even the dame by her side heard her, “I see you’re well… “ in my direction.

As soon as it was decent for me to do so, I rushed inside, and frantically looked for my father to ask what was happening. All he could tell me in the short time he was able to spare for explanations was that the nobles of the city had grown incredibly restless – first with my delayed return, then with my alleged illness, and then with the lack of news on my recovery. Apparently, this was enough to push the more conservative of them into badgering my father endlessly until he came up with some sort of solution to deal with the potential of having an unfit heir to his position. Everyone believed me to be on my deathbed and so, in his naivety – not having had to deal with caustic rumours before then – he planned for ways to convince the nobles that everything was going to be fine. His solution involved sending out letters to the Lords of nearby Holds and their families with the intent to seek out a spouse for me. This would’ve proved that my health was improving and I was spry and lively, ready to arrange for a wedding as soon as I would’ve recovered fully.

A different Lord, someone with more ingenuity on their side, would’ve considered a whisper campaign to spread the same news, but not my father. He indeed sent envelopes to some of the most important noble houses of Valdmor, to keep up the pretence he had set up in the first place. I don’t yet know the consequences of this act, but surely most Lords thought him a fool for having even attempted arranging a political marriage in this day and age. Our land has seen peace for the past several centuries – the occasional military squabble isn’t enough to qualify as war – so every Lord in Valdmor has had enough time to fetch a suitable wife and produce a suitable heir. As tradition would have it, Valdmor politics require a male heir to the High King’s throne, and to the throne of a Free Lord as well, so each child has taken in recent history to marrying within the local aristocracy. Political unions would cause an imbalance of power, which is why only petty Landlords do this to better cement relationships between two smaller settlements. I had only a passing knowledge of all this, before our esteemed guest saw fit to inform me of the scope of my father’s actions on a Kingdom-wide scale. Father didn’t have the time to stop long enough to explain as much, aside from the fact that out of all the prospective maidens he invited to our castle to discuss a potential union, only one had taken his letter seriously and even went far enough as to depart from her home to reach us with extreme urgency.

I am to understand that her father, the Lord of the City of Lith, believed this whole endeavour to be a trick, a farce to undermine his position in some way – no, my father wouldn’t be this cunning. But instead of taking my father’s invitation with jest and scorn, she herself was the one who decided that it wouldn’t hurt to ascertain the situation in person. Going against her father’s wiser counsel, Lady Alianna of Lith resolutely boarded a coach and immediately departed for Othmor that same day she received my father’s missive. I learned as much from the lady herself when we conferred in the privacy of my study room.

Surrounded by books illustrating the geography and physical landscape of our country, with images swirling in my head of my recent travels into the wilderness, never could I have imagined to find myself in this situation so soon after my return home. I was talking shop – and not your everyday business, but indeed what a political union would mean for us and our families – with one of, if not the most, beautiful maidens in all of Valdmor.

Fine features, elegant and betraying a nobility that runs deeper than the bonds of politics, but is woven into her family’s very blood; golden hair like a shimmering wheat field ripe for harvest, and intense blue, almost indigo eyes that broadcasted an active and vivacious intellect barely concealed deep within them. I am sitting at my desk, meekly subject to the poise and determination in the words of Lady Alianna Airewen of the ancient bloodline of the Lithrons – the one elven family with divine favour granting them a right to own land, resulting in their century-long domain over the City and Hold of Lith.

Behind closed doors, we became better acquainted, until we finally felt comfortable enough to disclose the truth to one another. Perhaps my recent adventures had been too much for my once simple mind and I felt the need to spill the beans as soon as I found someone willing to listen – Lady Alianna seemed transparent and very direct regarding her intentions and ambitions, so I saw no reason not to share with her news of what had happened to me only a short time before her arrival. I told her that no, in fact I had never been sick at all; I had simply swayed from the given task and found myself travelling much further than anticipated, causing delays and trouble with my decision to explore the Tarwood and the Scorching Wastes – – the now familiar glint of interest and curiosity manifested in her eyes at the mention of such exotic and dangerous locales, and that alone bolstered me into telling her more and more. I briefly told her the highlights of my travels, about strange business had along the path and the perils of the journey, but I was taking care to leave some details unsaid, to keep her hungering for more of my stories. As she listened to me so intently, lounging on an armchair and distractedly twirling a shimmering lock of hair with two slender fingers, I felt her eyes on me. Perhaps they were filled with desire towards my very person, or perhaps it was just envy for the travels I had dared to embark on and which she would’ve loved to experience for herself as well. Either way, it was a pleasure to be regarded and, apparently, admired so.

Then, she opened up to me, after a wishful sigh. Feigning bashfulness, she paced around the room, running her finger on the spines of books and on the edge of my desk to seem more approachable and likeable – as if she’d needed it – and began explaining her end of the story. Having an older brother and several half and full-blooded siblings scattered around Lith and the surrounding plains, meant that her hometown had nothing left to offer her – not a position leading the City, no power among the local military forces, and yet she was shackled to her name and clan, not allowed to sway from that path to seek out other fields where she could express her potential. Chagrined, she admitted that she spent most of her time pestering her father and prying into official business, demanding to have a say in what her older brother was meant to decide as the future Lord of Lith – she’d been this way since she was a young girl, overeager to take part in her family’s affairs and receive recognition for her efforts. Eventually, she grew to be a cunning woman who delighted in participating in politics from the shadows. Unfortunately, rumours of her insistence and ‘emancipation’ displeased many potential suitors, and she was left to her own devices for several years past what would’ve been the prime age to be wedded for a woman with elven blood.

At this point I took a better look at her visage, the way she carried herself, her dress and the hand movements she used to illustrate her story as she spoke – trying to understand more about her after hearing so much about her past. I had enough clues to be able to read her with some degree of reliability, but she remained a mystery for the most part; first of all, I was now questioning her age and although I know better than to ask, I couldn’t help making guesses in my head while she continued with her speech.

My father’s letter came as a surprise and her father’s first instinct was to throw it into the fireplace, believing it to be a tasteless joke or, even worse, a plot to overthrow Lith. Lady Alianna interceded, wanting to know more about what had brought my father to send such an absurd message and desperately seeking a shred of excitement in her life. She immediately departed, and her father’s final reaction before the carriage took off, was that perhaps it would’ve been a good idea if she decided to get engaged to me, seeing as she was turning out to be quite the spinster. Lady Alianna’s face twitched in disgust just at recollection of her father’s words and opinion of her. In her grimace I saw how desperate she was to get out of there, away from him and perhaps the rest of her family.

Once she finished telling me about herself, with a renewed fire she spoke of how my father’s outlandish idea to propose an engagement could’ve been an incredible boon, a once-in-a-lifetime chance to gain respect and renown – if we decided to proceed with this ‘marriage of convenience’, our union would allow us to do the unprecedented; joining Othmor and Lith, two major cities with considerable power, after centuries without political unions, would’ve meant I would gain the support of Lith through her connections, and she would finally get to be someone, a real wedded Lady with free reign to exert her potential.

Her demeanour, her posture – everything about her spoke of fiery ambition. I was almost sold on her plan to go through with this union my father had gotten me into. Seeing the spark light again in her, my own desires came rushing back to the surface, leaving me light-headed. I knew what I wanted out of this deal – if this was indeed meant to be a business arrangement, rather than a true intimate union between two lovers. All I wanted was a chance to go back into the wild, to find ways to explore and adventure some more, seeing as all the experiences I lived through had only stoked my interest, rather than snuffing it out due to the incredible dangers I knew were awaiting for me if I went down that path again.

She told me that she wanted a position of relevance at court if she were to become my wife, that she wouldn’t have been happy just sitting on the side-lines nodding along and knitting blankets and bonnets for our children.

No, she craved control. Power. If she had that, I wouldn’t have had to worry about politics as much as was expected from me at the moment. We would share the duties of a Free Lord, together. This meant I would have, potentially, more time and reasons to travel, to seal deals with allies, to visit the provinces, to explore the wilderness and canvass the Hold…

 

This was two days ago. Since then, Lady Alianna has been sleeping in a guest room here in the castle, a few doors from mine, for decency. We’re waiting for her father and mother to join us, so we can properly celebrate our union. My family and hers will bear witness that infatuation struck us both at first sight, and no ill-gotten gains will sprung from such a pure and genuine love.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is probably super slow and drags too much. It's probably way too infodump-y and I'll get it if you hate it. But get this - I start each entry with zero ideas and I improvise (aka bullshit) my way through 99% of it, with no idea of how I'll tie the current chapter with the previous or with the next. So all things considered, maybe I didn't do such a bad job?  
> Anyway, let me know what you think!


	9. Element (Pt.1) - A New Order

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Author and Lady Alianna begin a tentative alliance, which might with time turn into friendship. But will the fine print that comes with a political marriage be in the way of true kinship? Will Lady Alianna's secret jeopardize all the Author has agreed to? With new discoveries, life at court for the Author might prove to be far different from what he grew up to believe, and a new order might turn the tables on him and his family.

In the chaos that has reigned at the castle in the past few weeks, I’ve had the chance to file the paperwork needed to knight Esja – I haven’t forgotten about her. I cautioned her to dress appropriately and be on her best behaviour, and she was allowed into the keep. In my study, she took a knee and vowed to serve me in any capacity she could, risking her life to defend her Lord. I knighted her using the ornamental blade that has been in our family for several generations, and brought her into a less-than-formal hug, clapping my hands on her back and laughing with her at the memories of all we’d survived together. I barely noticed a well concealed grimace when I hit against her shoulder, and I wonder if she still hurt from the injury sustained at Illinor. At that point, a faint knock signalled my betrothed’s entrance into the room and she caught us in that jovial embrace. She smirked, still composed and on the threshold, waiting to be introduced. Immediately after hearing Esja’s name, she also congratulated her on services rendered and those that would be rendered still in the near future, now that she had been knighted officially. Without a word, Lady Alianna moved past me and signed the paper I had left on the desk – the one that officialised the whole ordeal. The ceremony would’ve needed a witness, and she saved me the effort – and embarrassment – of having to forge someone else’s signature. She’s no stranger to resorting to this type of tricks, so I was reassured in knowing she wouldn’t have thought much of my secrecy. She knew it was due to the fact that Esja’s involvement with me needed to be kept secret as to not disclose the terms of my absence. However, once the Sword-maiden left the room – bearing a pleased and proud expression – Lady Alianna gently squeezed my arm and leaned in to whisper into my ear something akin to “Did you bed her?”

I shouldn’t be as careless as to relay any and every conversation between me and my betrothed, lest this journal is discovered by those who are already starting to speculate on our union, but suffice it to say that Lady Alianna proved and continues to prove that she is much blunter and direct than one would expect of her based on her position and apparent diplomatic disposition. She’s stunned me as well more than once with her choice of words, and in how amenable she is to discussing certain matters. For one, shortly after announcing our imminent union she inquired regarding my taste in the bedroom, and whether or not our individual interests would’ve clashed or if something could still be done to keep up, at the very least, the pretence of what’s expected of a newly wedded couple. So her question didn’t come as a surprise, although I was still taken aback by it.

She followed it immediately with a remark on how ‘rough around the edges’ and ‘handsome in her own right’ Esja is, and how she would understand if we decided to enjoy ourselves while we were sequestered in the wilds. I must’ve choked on my reply, too busy turning a bright shade of crimson all over my cheeks and down my neck, because she was quick to jump to the next question, by saying that “Of course, your other friend was also present. The squire, yes? Perhaps him, then?”

By then, I felt under attack. As if she was bullying me into telling her what she wanted to know and knew was true. But I did not have the answers she wanted from me. Nothing had happened. We’d been infinitely too busy surviving and navigating the woods and wastes to pay any mind to pleasures of the flesh. Eventually, with her tell-tale half-smirk, she dropped the subject, placed a kiss on my cheek and left the room, reminding me her parents would’ve arrived at any moment.

 

Lord Esper and Lady Elluin Lithron exude the sort of dignified composure that naturally makes the beholder want to bend the knee in reverence. It took all I had in me to feign superiority and play the host, when in truth I was so stunned at the prospect of marrying a Lithron that I would’ve very well thrown myself at their feet in awed gratitude. My father was a stalwart presence by my side, doing his part in making our family look, at least, somewhat deserving of welcoming their daughter into our midst.

Seeing the haughty but pleased look upon Lord and Lady Lithron’s faces made me feel some sort of warmth in my gut, and I felt the chill of gooseflesh creeping down my arms. It struck me at that very moment that my mother would be happy to see me there, with Lady Alianna by my side, looking perfectly content to be marrying a ‘half-breed’ despite our differences. There is no love in this union – at least for the time being –, but if we can satisfy each other with whatever else we have to surrender and lend to one another, we could call ourselves happy with the outcome. Wherever my mother is, I hope she can be proud of me, somehow, if she can ever witness what I’ve been up to. Hopefully there’s more to come, and she can ask me all about it when she returns.

Polite conversation was had until eventually my father and Lady Alianna’s parents stole off to some room in the castle to discuss the terms of this union. With a house as noble such as theirs, there is much to be lost when marrying a nobody from an irrelevant province of the Kingdom, despite how we like to boast our military importance to the High King’s efforts at the Spine; but at the same time, Lady Alianna’s status as a nubile woman, still to this day, made my father hesitant as well. Would she be able to give me, us, an heir? There was no way for us to know beforehand, unless healers and physicians got involved in the delicate affair that is a political union that needs to appear to the general public as any other endeavour of love and romance would. Letting others in on the truth made for more messes than we already had on our hands as it stood to be solved in the near future, so I understood how vital it was to leave these matters to our parents’ capable and practised care.

Lady Alianna and I decided to leave them to it, and depart from the castle. On the surface, it was a romantic getaway from the hustle and bustle of politics to fall even more deeply in love with each other. In truth, we needed to get to know each other’s secrets, interests and inclinations, so that we could better play the part of two lovebirds. And she also needed to show me something close to her heart; something I needed to know about her, and which she’d rather I find out from the source rather than from hearsay on the streets. The wording gave me pause, and I started to believe that after all it was my family who would’ve gotten the worst end of the deal, and that I would’ve returned to the castle to find out Lady Alianna had some terrible fault that made our union impossible after all. But she’s too cunning to let this, whatever it was, or anything else, get in her way to obtain power, so I trusted her and we organized a caravan to reach the city of Coraque.

Esja, despite being unaware of the true terms of my and Lady Alianna’s relationship, remained the most trustworthy individual at my disposal, so I chose her to accompany us to the South. My lady brought her manservant, and we each appointed a guard to secure our expedition; one from Othmor, and one handpicked from the small contingent Lady Alianna’s parents had brought to our city for their time there. All of them were humans and, of all things, it was that detail that made me feel suddenly out of place. The cringing sensation that I was getting way out of my depth coiled in my stomach and I felt sick for the entire journey. What was I doing, travelling like this with a Lithron to a secluded location, with armed guards defending those they believed to be two lovebirds yearning for some privacy? In truth, we spent most of the time sat inside the carriage, our knees almost touching and her floral perfume wafting all around me in that enclosed space; whenever we stopped at a local roadside inn, we slept in twin beds within the same room, keeping a reasonable and polite distance, as one would expect of two betrotheds – all the while I was feeling nothing but embarrassment. She is so beautiful and otherworldly, while I must be little more than a simple commoner to her eyes.

She initiated conversation first, and so she did every time after that. Asking me about my life, my interests, my expectations. Testing the waters to see, so to speak, if I would’ve turned out like many other suitors she had to deny in the past. At that, the curious look I gave her was evidence enough that I wished to hear more about her past love interests, and without shame she told me all I wanted to know.

She hadn’t always been nubile; there had been others who had sought out her hand in marriage. With one, arrangements between the families proceeded far enough to begin talks of a formal engagement, until she found out the man was nothing like she believed. He proved too arrogant, too stubborn, too controlling to be possibly paired with one such as her without causing massive damage to both. I knew what she meant: after the few days we’d spent together, I could see clear as day how a man such as that could clash with Lady Alianna’s personality and ambitions. He would’ve snuffed out what she stood for – herself. In the end, so she told me as we coasted into the Southern Woods, she called everything off. She fell ill – a strange malaise took her after she announced that she couldn’t pursue that relationship any longer. Perhaps it was fear of change, after spending her teenage years wooing and being wooed by the same man; perhaps it was fear of the unknown; perhaps it was the release and the relief that came when freedom finally took a toll on her soul, which had been crushed and choked so for the past several years. As she remained hidden in her chambers to see that sickness through, rumour had it that it had been the man who’d called the engagement off, and word started to spread that perhaps little Lady Lithron wasn’t a good enough maiden, unworthy of being wed. From then, she resolved to turn her mind to business. She grew up to be a shrewd negotiator, whenever her father and older brother gave her some breathing room to plan alongside them, and she developed the skills needed of a mistress of secrets, a master spy at her own court. She learned how to weave the same rumours and whispers that had been her downfall into something she could manipulate.

Her tales gave me insight on what I could expect from our union, and by the time we reached Coraque, I didn’t feel as sick anymore. I knew that as long as I proved a trustworthy ally and, perhaps, even a friend to her, she would’ve deemed me valuable and thus kept me at her side to plot the greatness we both wanted to pursue, together. As we travelled, I also offered some of my own tales, of my childhood and adolescence – – which paled in comparison to hers, with the exception of the most recent adventure into Emera, which proved to be infinitely more entertaining to her than any more court gossip. Before we stepped down from the carriage, she winked at me knowingly. Nearly one week on the road, sharing each other’s secrets, had been enough for her to know that I was ecstatic to be back into the wilderness of the Woods. She knew that what she could offer me were more chances to spend time away from home and discovering new locations and tales. At our arrival, I was feeling the pangs of curiosity awakening in me from beneath the sense of worry and uncertainty, and I was eager to know what she wanted to show me.

Coraque is a decently sized city, but the eye betrays its true scope. At times it appears smaller than it truly is, especially when one finds oneself in front of the city gates and faced with a smattering of stone buildings that look like nothing in particular; other times, at night, it reveals its true colours. Clinging to the side of the Stormheart, Coraque weaves right into the mountain, hiding a wealth of culture, architecture and natural beauty. Caverns and burrows pierce the surface of the stone in a smattering of fissures, so that whenever the sun sets over the Stormheart, the slopes lit up with hundreds of beams of light. During the day, the sun is reflected by thin, wispy waterfalls that shine like silver ribbons before breaking in mid-air into clouds of mist, without ever touching ground. The small settlement that welcomes visitors into Coraque is but a fortified, well-defended trading post where merchants and dignitaries busy themselves when they’re too much in a rush to breathe in the true culture of the city – a city that is alive under and over and, indeed, all around us, within the Stormheart; a city that was established here, at the crossing where the civilized provinces and the boundless wilderness meet, between woods and mountains and rivers. This is the meeting point between the same savages who roam the Tarwood and whom I’ve encountered before, the caste of nobles that have seized ownership of the land and to whom I and Lady Alianna belong to, and the ancient civilizations that are said to have been borne from this very mountain centuries ago, from the hands of Gods, dripping of elemental energy.

Lady Alianna, unknowingly – or perhaps she knew all along; I have no reason to doubt the her intentions are thought-out and planned well in advance – had brought me to the one place in Valdmor that could’ve been the perfect destination to answer all of my questions, the ones that had sprung to my mind for the first time after meeting that strange old man in the Marshes, and then through every encounter that had occurred afterwards. At our arrival, we were stopped at the gates by a small retinue of guards, well-armed and resolute; intentioned, by the looks of it, to thoroughly check every traveller incoming to Coraque. They questioned Esja on her horse, as she was helming our small expedition, then they moved onto our driver and guards, until finally a stocky, stout knight bearing the city’s insignia poked his head into the carriage to check the passengers inside. Seeing Lady Alianna apparently placated any leftover doubts the man might’ve had, and we were let past the city walls. In front of us was a small circular square, of cobblestones and carved benches, with a central monument of polished stone depicting a towering humanoid – its features had long been erased by the battering elements, but the sheer size of it alone was impressive. We left the carriage and every member of our entourage at the stables to settle in, save for Esja who walked by my side, a few paces behind me. We crossed the small town before us until we hit the wall of the Stormheart; there, a large cavern breached the side of the mountain unlike anything I had ever seen. The image of the open maw of a gargantuan beast came to mind, and the inner city spread over an even larger, giant dome of rock, with streets and alleys winding into the mountain like pathways in an anthill. Signposts and plaques directed the unpractised traveller towards different parts of Coraque. In front of us, overlooking the main cavern of the city, was the Trade District: its walls are crammed with terraced layers of shops and storefronts carved directly into the mountain, with winding wrought-metal staircases and rocky landings all over the surface of the dome. Hundreds of beams of candle and lantern-light dot the cave like a starry sky, making for a spectacular sight. The other main areas of Coraque proper, each with their own entranceway and plaza leading to the outside world, are the Martial District and the Administrative one, but the real culture of this city lives and breathes all across the whole mountain, with dozens of neighbourhoods and small communities sprawled miles away from the external gates that first led us into town. A wizened old woman, with long and thinning grey hair and skin as pale as the moonlight sits at a street corner on a wicker chair, offering pamphlets and guiding tourists in the direction of their choosing. Astounded, Esja and I both follow aimlessly Lady Alianna, who walks with purpose up a set of quartz-encrusted steps, which shimmer under the torches lit every few feet along the walls.

We’re led to the Noble District – or so I was told after arriving to the upper level – where most of the aristocracy of Coraque resides and where one can behold the impenetrable mountain fortress of Lord and Lady Asharr, the regents of this city. At that point, after several cues and hints that helped direct my confused mind towards that singular deduction, I finally understood that Lady Alianna had been to the city several times over, in the recent past, and knew exactly what to look for. I’m writing in the relative privacy of a stunning suite in one of the best inns of Coraque; Lady Alianna is but a few steps away, sat on the king-sized bed we’ll have to share for the first time since our agreement came to be, and she’s currently changing into more comfortable attire. When I inquired about what she needed to tell – – or rather show, me, she said it will have to wait for tomorrow. She’s eager to enjoy a good night’s sleep in a proper bed – and I would be too, if not for the extreme embarrassment of having to sleep next to her that awaits me as soon as I’m done with this entry. I suppose it is pointless to drag it along much further…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm taking a long time to write this entire chapter, and with the shift in gears in the story, it's also turning out to be far longer than expected. So, I decided to split it in two. I guess that's alright? Dammit, I'm the one who's writing the story - of course it's alright! Enjoy the first part, the next is coming real, real soon!


	10. Element (Pt.2) - The Soul of the Cloudheart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The exploration of Coraque, the city built within the Stormheart Mountain, continues, with new revelations, well-kept secrets and a resolution. The Author does some soul searching as he processes the intricacies hidden within his betrothed and the history Lady Alianna carries in her blood.

We’ll leave the city tomorrow. Alianna wanted to allow me half a day to explore the wonders of Coraque and sample the local culture before we need to make haste back home, to Othmor. How very generous of her, after all I had to go through today. Yes, I shall visit the Fireflow District in the lower levels – anything to help stomach the discoveries and surprises of the past few hours.

I woke this morn after a restless night, which I’ve spent trying to be as modest as possible while in my underclothes, inches from the woman I’m yet to marry – – I tried pushing a pillow between us, then I tried bundling the sheets so that they could act as a barrier between our bodies, but I could still feel the heat radiating from her sun kissed skin, and her golden hair were everywhere. I was groggy from the lack of sleep, and my stomach was so knotted I found myself sitting in the darkness of our room, waiting in silence for the light of day to breach the crystal panes that cover the fissure in the stone wall one could call a ‘window’ to this inn. The amber rays were a balm to my eyes, because I knew that come morning, Alianna owed me some explanations. I know not If the tension in my bones and muscles came from the awkwardness I found myself into in having to sleep with her, or if it came from the impending doom of some sort of secret she was still keeping from me – all I knew was that time had come to finally know what she had meant when she said she needed to show me something ‘close to her heart’, something she’d rather I find out from her.

We’ve had a traditional breakfast. I’m pleased to find that Esja is still her usual self, as she went straight to the banquet table filled with displays of pastries, honeyed treats and coal roasted roots covered in sweet sugar crystals – at least I have evidence that the rest of the world around me hasn’t changed. But my stomach was sealed shut, and I pathetically sipped on a local brew that tasted funnily but was still enjoyable. Its alcoholic content also helped bolster me through the rest of the morning, as Alianna dallied around the inner courtyards of the Noble District, seemingly unbothered by the reason why she’d brought me out to Coraque in the first place. I soldiered through the nausea that sort of situation was causing me and I, at least, managed to enjoy the sights for a few hours. Despite it being only a handful of days from Othmor, I really didn’t know much about the city beyond what a Lord-to-be learns from his tutors. I knew about the family who lords over Coraque and the province around it, the depths of the Southern Woods that circle around and neatly avoid the wilds of the Tarwood; I knew about the architecture of the city, unique in its kind and betraying many more secrets in person than those the books I’ve studied even cared to mention; I knew about the sort of people that inhabits Coraque: humans, elves, small folk that dwells in the tunnels, and a number of others that I couldn’t wrap my head around from just reading about their descriptions. Finding myself surrounded by the locals made me realize that books and manuals often fall short – I shall try not to subject those who read this present journal to the same disappointing fate. I don’t know the specifics, and I found it rude to inquire about strangers’ ancestry, but I will do my best to relate what the locals, here, look like. A physical description will never hold up to the anthropological knowledge of seeing the breathing, pulsing life along Coraque’s streets and caverns, but it shall do for the moment. As I worried the hem of my shirt and my handkerchief, all the while Alianna coasted from building to building, greeting shopkeepers as if they were old friends – indeed with a familiarity and charisma unlike any I’ve seen – I had the chance to gaze upon different folks that tend to small shops and boutiques deep within the city. Each building is in fact carved, dug into and out of the flesh of Stormheart Mountain; prime pieces of estate can boast ‘windows’ and even balconies that look out hundreds of feet above the woods. Along the streets, spring water flows between ancient, smooth stone canals, until it exits into the open where the mountain lets fresh air and sunlight into the city. Men, women, and the peoples that give life to Coraque are variegated. Some have bizarre features, incredible to behold: many seem to have been cursed with stone-like skin, despite then being capable of full movement; others have translucent features, and I could see veins radiating just below the surface – one young lass blushed and bowed when Alianna greeted her, and I almost fainted when I witnessed her cheeks fill with blood and turn crimson, before the flush placated; one man had dusky purple skin – it reminded me of the travelling fortune-teller I had met near the border, and I immediately remembered that I had not yet told Alianna about that encounter at all. We also met others, for an astounding display of shapes and sizes: short gnomes hard at work ran between our legs without much care for tourists; a woman some 7-feet tall gently brushed us aside on her way down to the Administrative District, her hands full of loose parchments and ledgers. A showy, copper-skinned girl with white hair and ram horns was hustling at a fork in the road while we tried to move up a staircase in the noon rush, past the crowds of workers going to and fro, and she kept calling out to us while she juggled colourful stained-leather balls.

Near the early afternoon we reached some sort of café, a small restaurant with a large sunroom where the Stormheart broke, creating a 30-foot wide balcony that had then been shielded from the elements through a glass wall. It was mostly empty, and a cheerful young man with fire-red hair and glowing eyes brought us something to drink while we took in the panorama. It was breath-taking. We were sitting at the edge of this protrusion on the side of the mountain, inches from a 1000-feet drop. Past the glass we could see the thin fog and condensation from streams breaking in mid-air further above us, hovering and shimmering with prismatic glows. It was an incredible sight, and I finally felt my nerves loosen, before – of course – Alianna took advantage of the moment of calm and the relative privacy of the deserted establishment to breach the subject she had meant to talk to me about.

At first, she broke the news to me that cunning and guile were not going to be the only thing she would’ve brought to Othmor by marrying me. She also had other talents. Some didn’t see such ‘abilities’ in a good light, so that’s why she had preferred to speak of them with me in private. We had left Esja to wander and explore Coraque on her own, with instructions to keep to the near vicinity but out of the way, so we truly only had each other to worry about as we visited the city. As it stood, Lady Alianna – who then asked me to drop the formalities and call her simply by her name, she even went as far as to say I should’ve written just ‘Alianna’ in ‘my little book’, as well – had been gifted with arcane abilities.

Not just knowledge of magic, but the ability to use it, as well – something that we’re not in shortage of in Valdmor, but which definitely isn’t the norm among the nobility. Her brand of magic, in particular, is not one that is well regarded among the upper echelons of society. The skill of those who study and research magic is taken into esteemed consideration, but others, those who had arcane abilities bestowed upon them through other means, are regarded with a cautious and wary eye. I have known a few magic users in my short time on this earth – Jenet, who can heal and cure ailments through the blessings of the God she worships; the loyal Captain of the Guard in Othmor, whom I’ve known since I was a small child and who also prays nightly to be awarded strength and protection in battle; court mages across all of Valdmor teach and cherish arcane knowledge, sharing it with anyone who finds themselves in need of an answer that strays from the beaten path. But as I’ve witnessed, the savages that roam our lands also resort to trickery and deceit borne of magic usage, and I’ve seen my share of destructive effects caused by magic and its influence on the world. And, besides, none of it justified the fact that Alianna had brought me out here just to mention this small, if potentially problematic, detail.

She also said that neither of her parents or immediate relatives had the same abilities, and no one else in her family, aside from a few distant aunts, cousins, and other scattered figures along her ancestry, was able to wield magic. She simply hadn’t known where magic came from when she first cast a spell at a very young age, and it immediately became clear that her gift could’ve turned into something very foul and dangerous indeed. She trained to keep her strength under control until finally her parents had revealed to her the source of her magic. It ran in her blood, and in that of those few members of the Lithron dynasty back in ancient times. In Valdmor, anything that is tied to one’s blood has the potential to overthrow an entire kingdom, and that sort of lineage is something very fickle, something that must be dealt with by resorting to the most extreme secrecy measures. A few years after learning about her skills, Alianna became her yearly journeys down to Coraque, to connect with her roots and conducting her own private research on the exact extent of this source of magic. To the locals, the young woman was simply enamoured with the sights and landscapes of Southern Valdmor and the Stormheart peaks; her constant visits weren’t much more than the brief holiday of a sheltered and wealthy princess. Only a few select people in Lith and Coraque knew about the truth – Lord Umber and Lady Elyen Asharr in the city, and barely enough court wizards to count them on one hand, between here and back home. She was telling me this because she needed someone she could trust in Othmor, and since we’d grown closer, it might as well have been me.

I took no offense in that, I knew that becoming confidants was something we’d gotten ourselves into, a tentative friendship that we were harbouring out of stubbornness, and out of a desire to make this alliance work for both of our sakes. Was there really any sentiment behind that? Is there? Will there be anything real between us, or will it just be the pretence of friendship, and kinship, for as long as we can hold up the deception? As I wait to see what happens to us, I beam with pride, knowing that she can trust me, and me alone in all of Othmor, with this secret. ‘Do her parents know she meant to tell me?’ I asked. She said that no, they didn’t. They thought she’d brought me to Coraque only so that it wouldn’t look strange to me when she’d leave on her own every summer, without fail. They were hoping I’d grow enamoured with the city enough to understand why she loved it so much, but wary of its inhabitants and customs so not to want to accompany her every time she travelled South. I nodded along as she explained, but there were still many things I didn’t – couldn’t – understand. Why here, why Coraque? Where did her magic come from? Did she choose this city because of political connections, because of its remote location, because it harboured intrinsic magic she could draw upon? I voiced my theories and she smiled her usual smile. The one that, as I’ve come to decipher it, means she’s hiding something but is planning to reveal it in grand style.

She looked around and, after assessing our surroundings and seeing that no one was nearby or looking in our direction, she placed her open palm over my empty chalice, batted her long lashes, and revealed a now full glass of crystal clear water. I had seen grander displays of magic, but I was still taken aback at her show of skill. She said that there was more where that came from and we paid our tab before leaving.

An hour of walking and climbing up steeper and steeper, narrower and narrower staircases finally led us to a break in the mountain. Atop the lowest peak of the mountain range, known as Cloudheart, past a well-guarded set of thick steel doors, awaited a rocky plateau, entirely exposed to the winds and frost of the mountain range. My breath caught in my lungs and, perhaps due to the thinner, cutting air up there, I found myself near incapable of breathing properly. I was paralyzed in place, Alianna had to nudge me further from the doors and into the open. I believe I discovered a new-found fear of heights. I still shiver as I’m writing.

I looked around the clearing; jagged rocks and cliffs framed the snow-dappled ground on all sides. My eyes watered from the freezing currents that swept around us, but I managed to notice a treacherous path that continued North-Eastward, towards the remainder of the mountain range; anyone looking to reclaim the Stormheart for themselves would’ve had to brave that hike. Alianna turned to me and squeezed into her coat until her long hair puffed around the collar in a halo of glimmering gold, stray locks whipping around her face and against her rosy cheeks. She took my hands into her own, freezing ones and pulled me in. We were almost nose to nose, our breaths mingled with every exhale, when she told me “Look, don’t take your eyes off me”. Then, she vanished.

I could feel her hands in my grasp, still; her fingers playfully pinching my wrists. I held my breath only to find the cloud of condensation she produced was still warm against my cheeks. A moist, frosty kiss gently caressed my cheek before her hold left me and I saw her careful steps draw circles in the snow around me. I turned on myself like a fool, much like a windup toy, completely lost and in disbelief. After a minute of her giggling nowhere and everywhere at once, she saw fit to reappear. Without much time spared for having words, she dragged me down into that very same path in the mountain I had noticed moments earlier, and which I had resolved never to walk down. I tried to protest her decision, but my whining was lost to the thunderous Eastern winds. Carefully stepping around ice patches and boulders, we managed to emerge on the other side of a wall of stone. The landscape that opened before me was something I’ll never forget, but by the Gods did it scare the living soul out of me! From there onwards, the hike would have turned into a much more dangerous affair, surely not something we could embark on without proper attire or equipment, she said, but we had gotten far enough to see into the Stormheart. She huddled against me, her willowy, slender form padded under thick furs and the many layers of clothing she’d donned, anticipating the weather – I, on the other hand, was worse for wear, and I could feel my toes less and less as time wore on. Perhaps she kept close more for my benefit than for hers. Or perhaps she was hoping that the proximity would’ve caused me to flush and warm up of my own accord. Both theories applied, and her closeness helped me retain all of my limbs, in the end. I did have to take a long, blistering hot bath once we returned to our room at the inn, and I wish I was still submerged in that balmy water even now; but alas, I felt sleep calling to me and I knew I would’ve had to put today’s events to paper before going to bed, so the bath had to be cut short.

As we stood like two statues, lodged at the mouth of a ridge in the mountainside, Alianna stretched out her arm and pointed to a nondescript spot far off and up the slopes of the Stormheart, miles from us. I squinted and tried to focus to no avail for a minute, until finally the swirling snowfall around me relented enough to allow me to see the faint shape of a fortress. Stone and ice, and massive in size to be visible this far away, there it stood – an ancient keep hidden at the cradle of humanity. I knew it to be, without a shadow of a doubt, the seat of giants that roamed the furthermost reaches of Saria. For the length of the Ageless Spine – the immense and insurmountable mountains that separate the continent of Heiterhar from the land reclaimed by the Oriolid Empire –, all the while us mere mortals busied ourselves boring tunnels and breaching the stone from below, there they stood in all their greatness. This was one of but a hundred such structures, where the vestiges of our ancestors and the children of Gods still dwelled. Giants borne from the very elements that moulded Saria were there, at the end of my line of sight, at the horizon. Life for them had never stopped, never relented. We have to live in a world that had seen the forces of good and evil battle until both had left mankind to its own devices – but not them. For them, history had all been one long stretch, from Creation and all the way until the very end of times. Seeing it for myself made a strong sense of belonging and isolation bloom inside of me at the same time, indivisible one from the other. It’s as if the knowledge that such ancient creatures still exist makes my very being long for times gone by. A seed deep within me wanted to experience the same kind of life they must be experiencing, the genetic memory in my blood called me to ancient civilizations.

Alianna must’ve been able to read my thoughts, then, because her next words mirrored exactly what was going through my mind at that very moment.

“See those clouds? The shapes of the fortress, clinging to the Stormheart? See the way the rocks follow the mountain, almost like a palisade? That’s the Kingdom of the Cloud Giants. I’m told they are my ancestors, I owe my powers to them.”

Many questions sprung to mind. Had she ever seen them in person? Only a few times, with clear skies, and from very far away. How close had she gotten to the fortress? Not much more than this. How could she train to harness her power? Wizards from Coraque brought her up here to practise in secret. And many more such enquires, which she answered with complete transparency. She admitted that her biggest fear was that this discovery would’ve been the last straw for me. If I hadn’t decided not to get through with the marriage because she was a more skilled politician than me, because she was more proficient with the intrigues and games at court, because her family was more well-regarded and better seen in the High King’s halls, because she had pure elven blood and I was neither human not elf – then surely finding out that not only did she hold control over the elements and could practise the arcane arts, but her strength came from the giants themselves, now that would’ve certainly broken my resolve to enter an alliance with her. She feared her history would’ve been too much to unpack, too troublesome to get the simple city of Othmor involved in it. Indeed it is a lot to process, and I’m taking tonight for myself, to relate the events that occurred today so that I can weight them with a clearer mind. And with the utmost secrecy, of course. If I ever have to show this journal to another living soul, it will have to be after careful consideration – redacted, with a disclaimer that everything hereby contained is a figment of my own imagination.

But in the calm of the evening, after our return below deck, Alianna afforded me some privacy. She went out to have a drink with – and get acquainted to – Esja, and I hope she will return only once I have already succumbed to sleep.

With time to relate Alianna’s revelations I’ve realized several things about myself that I hadn’t considered during the journey that had preceded this entire marriage ordeal. If travelling into the Tarwood and Emera had uncovered new sides of myself, experiencing Coraque, getting acquainted with Lady Alianna – even intimately, dare I say – and finally being let in on her secret had made me understand the type of man I would like to be. I’m too easily startled by strange occurrences, by foreign discoveries; that most definitely makes for a poor leader, someone not fit to be a Lord. Recent months have brought to the surface just how little prepared I am to face challenges, as much as I would like to prove and bring evidence that it is otherwise. Of one thing I am certain – my strength stands in companionship, in surrounding myself with allies and trusted friends. Esja and Cecil were as much, and Alianna proved to be one as well, and hopefully I to her, too. Together, I am confident that a radiant, prosperous future awaits Othmor, Lith and us – together and when taken separately.

Where my wit is lacking, I now know she can make up for it, and I can back her whenever she needs an unrelenting supporter. If visiting Coraque accomplished anything, other than allowing me into her world, is that we make steady friends, despite our differences and despite how unsure I can be of myself at times. I know she has doubts, too. She, too, feels inadequate. Her decision to stray off her family’s path, to take a different direction proved as much, they are evidence of how resolute she is in her quest for independence. Cultivating her magic is clearly important to her, and I won’t let the means through which she broke the news to me get in the way of supporting her. I won’t let my weaknesses stop her path to glory, Gods know I would be crushed if I tried. My only real contact with magic had been within the wilderness, when the savages had ensorcelled us into seeing terrible illusions of wanton violence to scare us off. Although I realize it was all a trick of the eye, magic is unquestionably a powerful tool – one that Alianna had the fortune to be gifted with. I won’t squander it, and if our friendship lasts long enough to see this union through upon our return to Othmor, I swear I will do my best to be a steadfast ally.

I should get to bed before I ramble more than I already have. Tomorrow, great exploration of the lower levels of the city awaits me, and I’m sure Alianna will be delighted in seeing my reactions when I face off against the local cuisine and street buskers. I am told beings made of coal and cinder, and fountains of fire dwell deep below the surface, here in Coraque. That will definitely call for a change in wardrobe, then.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another super long chapter. I'm sorry. I hope it's not too much of a info-dump. Let me know if you hated it, or if you even read it through til the end.  
> You were very brave.


End file.
